My battles with vice.

MY BATTLES
WITH VICE

BY

VIRGINIA BROOKS

Author of "Little Lost Sister."

NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY

1915

Copyright, 1915, by
THE MACAULAY COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION 7

FOREWORD , 9

I A MOTHER'S REQUEST 23

II I FIND WORK AS A WAITRESS .... 28

III I BECOME A CLERK 44

IV THE FIRST CLEW 51

V NELLIE DALY'S MEAL TICKET ... 62

VI "BULL" TEVIS 70

VII AT THE CAFE SINISTER 78

VIII WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE ... 85

IX THE TRAIL OF WATCHFUL JOHNNY . . 94

X THE BEXELWAUM BALL 107

XI HER RETROSPECTION 117

XII QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS .... 123

XIII TREFALKA AND STEVE 135

XIV THE SCARLET WEDDING DRESS . . .142
XV ANNIE'S HUSBAND 151

XVI MARY HOLDEN 160

XVII I HUNT A JOB ON THE STAGE . . .165

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVIII THE MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION . . .172

XIX GRAY WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE . . .179

XX IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT . . . .187

XXI CARMEN OF THE TORPEDO CAFE . . .196

XXII IKE BLOSSOM 203

XXIII MAZELLE 210

XXIV "THE CAFE" 217

XXV THE ESCAPE 224

XXVI CONCLUSION 234

INTRODUCTION

"My BATTLES WITH VICE" is the story of the
struggle for honor and virtue of the girl who
must work to live.

It is the story of thousands who have foughr.
the battle of modern industrial life and lost

Virginia Brooks is the girl, who single-
handed fought the forces of evil in West Ham-
mond, Illinois, and compelled the town to
clean up. It was she who drove the worst
dives in Christendom out of existence, because,
knowing the law, she fought for its enforce-
ment.

This story is written by a young woman
reared in the best social atmosphere, whose
desire to aid her less fortunate sisters mani-
fested itself early in life.

With the energy and eagerness of youth,

7

8 INTRODUCTION

backed by the foremost philanthropic interests
in Chicago, she sought out and studied at first
hand the problems of the six-dollar-a-week
working girl — not by asking questions, but by
living with the girl, working with her side by
side for the same wage, experiencing her
temptations, sharing her sufferings, confront-
ing her problems.

Virginia Brooks did not stop there. She
followed the girl who had fallen to those p re-
car) ous crags and ledges down the mountain-
side, that delay the final plunge into the abyss.
In the amusement resorts, dance halls and by-
ways that exit all in one direction, she learned
the lesson of the ages from a new viewpoint—
the viewpoint of the new woman.

THE PUBLISHERS.

FOREWORD

THE OLD UNDERLYING EVIL

THE social evil is as old as humanity. As far
back as history gives any record, evidences of
its existence and the subsequent terrible traffic
are to be found. From savagery to modern
civilization women have been slaves to the
brute that lives in man. They have been cap-
tured, sold for profit, and have had little to
say.

The Dark Ages are replete with data on this
sad, shameful phase of life. The dawn of the
Christian era, with its accompanying teaching
of purity and chastity, introduced extreme
asceticism. A radical stand was necessary
where civilization had apparently gone sex
mad.

io FOREWORD

After Christianity was established and ex-
treme persecution of the Christians had ceased,
a general laxity developed and gradually the
old conditions returned. During the Middle
Ages social laxity increased with astounding
rapidity.

Laws framed for the suppression of evil
were not even enforced. One has but to read
of the court of Louis XIV to gather an idea
of the condition of society during this period.
Such royal courts set the example and loose-
ness ran through all grades of society.

With the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury scientific methods were devised for
handling the victims of this evil period.
More or less interest was aroused in the bring-
ing about of an improved condition of affairs.
Some effort was made to punish defiance of
the laws of decency. For the first time the
evil was reduced to negotiable proportions.

If we read and follow the course of society's

FOREWORD ii

curse through past ages, we may be inclined to
comfort ourselves with the reflection that
wickedness is past and done away with, but
this is far from being the truth as I found out.
On the contrary, here in free America condi-
tions exist that have never been surpassed in
any age. As the problem faced ages that are
past, so it faces us to-day.

In my efforts at driving out criminality from
one of the border towns of Chicago I came
face to face with some shocking truths. I
found that evil and vice as it exists in the small
town is not a thing apart, depending on itself,
but is actually a small part of a great system.

When I first made an effort to break down
the wall of defense of the system which pro-
tected evil doers, I found the doors of justice
gradually closing against me. I found myself
beset by enemies in the most unlocked for
situations. In fact, I found that to ask that
vice be stamped out was to stand practically

12 FOREWORD

alone unless by continued effort I could arouse
sufficient strength of public sentiment to cow
public officials into decisive action.

I have been amazed and horrified at the
methods employed by these traders in human
flesh to entice and induce the innocent and the
unwary into the nets spread for their unsus-
pecting feet. I have waxhed over and over
again our little lost sisters making their first
entree to the speedway of despair. One by
one I have noted the causes, the enticements,
the inducements, all of them far too carefully
planned and laid to be observed by one so un-
worldly as the poor girl who gets caught. I
have censured society in my heart, and justly
so. The fate of the girl adrift is to be laid
directly at the door of society. Her defeat
and destruction is the price society makes her
pay.

When the forces of good are brought to bear
upon these trappers and wreckers of young

FOREWORD 13

girls, I have watched the means they use to
secure immunity and protection. They are
safe as safety itself, unless some slip, some
accident, happens that occasionally brings one
of them to tardy justice. I have seen men
held high in public estimation come to the de-
fense of these vultures. I have seen them use
every technicality, every unfair advantage, to
keep such scoundrels from the prison doors,
until my righteous indignation has cried out,
"There is no justice in the courts. The laws
are framed to shelter thieves. No man gets
his just due."

Whispered stories arouse my curiosity.
Once more I watch. Again I am confronted
with the system. I find that vice is a trust—
the most powerful, the most elusive, the most
evasive in the world. Not the victim profits,
but the exploiters. Not the victim, but the
landlords, society parasites, dwellers on the
boulevard.

H FOREWORD

The pay envelopes are labeled for the pro-
curer, the police, the politicians, straight on
to the man higher up. Shame does not attend
the man who profits from such a source. He
is the smugly successful business man of the
twentieth century. The girl adrift pays the
price. Out of the degradation of her body
and the damnation of her soul the fat philan-
thropist delivers his dole to charity.

I have seen the beginning of temptation
come to young officers on the police force in
Chicago. I have observed the hardening
process that day after day affects conscience.
I have watched the indifference grow upon
them as their hands seized upon tainted dol-
lars. Gradually the growing income, the in-
creasing comforts and perquisites, completely
dominate such natures. Whatever trace of re-
finement may originally have been seen in
their faces becomes lost in the bloating that
comes from contact with the monster.

FOREWORD 15

They, too, begin to close down on the girl
adrift. They hound her with threats of jus-
tice applied, demanding a portion of her
revenue on the side.

To-day I am convinced that the procurer,
the officer, the keeper, are tools only in the
hands of the controllers of the trust. What
they reap as benefit comes back to the trust as
expenditures through gambling and drink bills
collected by the trust. The fortunes are for
the wealthy sons of the trust magnates.

I am impressed with the striking difference
between the agencies for the destruction and
those for the safeguarding of the young. The
agencies for safeguarding are scattered and
ineffective, while those for destruction are
united and nearly infallible. Hence the
amazing power of the latter. The agents of
the vice trust are always alert. Never in the
moments of fatigue, of bitter disappointment
and loneliness that overtake the girl adrift,

1 6 FOREWORD

never is the procurer far away. He is al-
ways at hand with a friendly word, offers of
companionship, the promise of work.

In one moment of weakness, unsustained by
any of the safeguarding agencies, down goes
the girl adrift. The doors close behind her.
She is forever lost. She has joined that army
of little lost sisters.

It is not only the ostensible friend in the
hour of need that makes captures. Far more
subtle influences are at work to drag in the
unsuspecting country girl. Here the methods
pursued to bind and hold the innocent are so
dastardly as to be almost beyond belief.

I have seen this process, too. I have
watched the hounds posing about as the blase
dilettante of a small town, attracting little
children. There begins a process of under-
mining purity and innocence. After this had
been accomplished these rascals pushed the

FOREWORD 17

ruined children on and on until there remained
but one way to earn their daily bread.

I will tell you the story of little Florence —
a little slip of girl, just fourteen. Her father
was employed on the many acres owned by
the son of one of the foremost families in
Chicago. This son, a gentleman in the city,
a cur in the country town, never rested until
he had Florence in his power. Fearing that
his guilt would be discovered and tired of his
plaything, he sent her out of the village with
a pitifully small sum of money in her pocket.

So she struck out for the city alone — this
child of fourteen years, untrained, unprepared,
facing an industrial world alone. She sought
work, but she could not earn enough to keep
body and soul together. One of the women in
the place that employed Florence offered to
introduce her to a friend who would show
her "how to make a living in a simple way."

1 8 FOREWORD

Thus Florence met the friend — "Watchful
Johnny" of the System. The child's labor
ceased; her education of bitterness and cruelty
was just beginning.

After a time Florence tried to make the
wealthy man pay her in money for the terrible
price he had extracted from her. In his fear
that some of his exclusive associates would
publicly ridicule him for his indiscretion, he
began to persecute the child through the aid
of politics and the use of money.

Time passed and in a few years, driven
from one dive to another, Florence died miser-
ably and alone. The work of that son of
wealth was complete.

He is only a type after all — an exemplar of
the unthinking, the criminally careless, the
evilly intent. He and his band keep on con-
tributing to the ranks of the unfortunate, keep
swelling the revenues of the masters of social
corruption.

FOREWORD 19

Society cannot afford to disregard the truth
of the situation. Society dares not look with
indifference upon the greatest of social prob-
lems which confronts us to-day. The girl
adrift is to be reckoned with. Hers is the
handicap, hers is the struggle, and hers the
cup of bitterness, as she drains it to the dregs.

I know this because I have seen it. I have
lived side by side with her as waitress, clerk,
or laundress — as toiler of the factory. Why?
Because I wanted to know for myself what it
is that drums up recruits to the life that is
death — because there might be an opportunity
to bring to the people at large some suggestion,
some insight yet dark, that would spur on
greater agitation and rouse greater interest
in the abolition of this evil.

MY BATTLES WITH VICE

MY BATTLES WITH
VICE

CHAPTER I

A MOTHER'S REQUEST

FROM my mail one morning I picked out a
letter written by a woman in Limaville,
Illinois, a little town in the southern part of
the State with less than three thousand in-
habitants. The letter impressed me. It
read:

"Dear Miss Brooks:

"I am writing to ask you to help me. Six
months ago my little girl ran away from home.
I guess she was tired of the farm, tired of
washing dishes, tired of being cooped up in

23

24 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

this small town, because in the note she left
she said she wanted to see the city, the
restaurants, the lights, the shop windows and
the people.

"Two weeks after she ran away a postal
came. Mary — that is her name — said she
had found work in Chicago. She didn't send
her address. Maybe she thought we would
send after her. We've had no word since
then.

"People down here say perhaps Mary's
fallen in with those 'white slavers' we read
about in the newspapers.

"Miss Brooks, maybe you don't know what
a mother's sorrow is. Day and night I am
praying to God to send my Mary back to me.
If I only knew where to reach her. The
thought that maybe she is hungry, sick and
suffering is breaking my heart. I am so
powerless to help her. Can't you do some-
thing? Can't you find her for me? I am

A MOTHER'S REQUEST 25

sending you her picture, the one she had taken
just before she graduated from the grammar
school.

"A broken-hearted mother,
"ELIZA HOLDEN."

The pages of the letter were tear-stained.
Poor mother, I thought! What must her an-
guish be as day after day no word comes to
her from Mary? Probably, I imagined, she
pictures in her mind each tender memory,
each little incident which changed her sweet,
rosy baby to a winsome grown-up girl. Prob-
ably a thousand times she has shaped her
daughter's future; a thousand times pictured
her won by the stalwart man of her fancy,
only to rouse herself to the truth, the hideous
truth — that her Mary was gone. Where?
How? And even the gossiping neighbors be-
ginning to whisper — "white slavers!''

"White slavers!" How often of late I had

26 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

heard the phrase. I didn't know then as I
know now that a great system of white slavery
existed. I didn't know then that the system
had ramifications extending throughout the en-
tire country, and that these ramifications are
to be found in the most unlocked for, the most
unbelievable places. I didn't know then that
its supporters are men and women high in
social and political life.

For many months I had been receiving let-
ters from mothers in all parts of the country
asking me to lend my aid in locating their lost
daughters. Most of the letters said that the
girl had gone to the city and then nothing
more had been heard of her.

Perhaps these girls had fallen a prey to the
System! Mary Holden, perhaps she, too,—
It couldn't be! I sprang to my feet. Some-
thing told me to go out and seek the truth, to
enter the city's industrial life and strip the
veil of mystery surrounding the pitfalls, the

A MOTHER'S REQUEST 27

dark and devious alleyways through which
girls disappear. I determined to drive from
its hiding place the grim specter of commer-
cialized, trust controlled vice, and to restore
Mary Holden to her mother.

CHAPTER II

I FIND WORK AS A WAITRESS

WHEN I decided to get my information by
actual contact with conditions that affect girls
coming to the city, and especially working
girls, I was puzzled for a time as to the means
of getting a job.

My first efforts to secure a place as waitress
in downtown restaurants were not very success-
ful. I had scraped up an acquaintance with
several girls employed in restaurants, and to
them I communicated my desire to work.
One of them was rather a pretty child named
Linny Smith. She wore a yard or more of
puffs and seemed to me on first impression to
be about half hair, but she was very good
hearted and anxious to help me.

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 29

"The trouble with you, Kid," she confided,
" is that you ain't got no style to you. Look
at the way you've got your hair on."

"What's the matter with it?" I inquired with
deep humility.

"Matter with it?" she retorted with disgust.
"Get some puffs and doll yourself up."

On reflection I decided that her advice about
the puffs was sound from several points of
view.

In the first place, I did not want to be recog-
nized, which would make my work of no avail,
and in the second place my too placid aspect
did really seem to have a deterrent effect on
the employer of help. So I bought some puffs
and trained them down over my forehead with
an effect so extraordinary that I at once con-
cluded the disguise to be absolutely safe.

The next day I tried several more places and
failed again, but the more I tried and failed
the more determined I was to be a waitress.

30 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I wanted to experience for myself from day
to day all the advantages and disadvantages
connected with the occupation. I had no ex-
perience, you see, and already I was beginning
to realize the struggle a girl must go through
when she has had no preparation for entry into
the fields of industry. I wanted to find out
what the opportunities of such a girl were —
what praise or blame or pleasure or humilia-
tion might be hers.

So I persisted, and at last I succeeded.
Linny Smith had offered me daily hints as to
how I might, from her experienced point of
view, improve my appearance and thus stand
a better chance of getting work.

My first chance came at one of the big stores.
I entered the employment bureau of this place
and found a long line of girls standing before
the superintendent's desk. The line had been
waiting, I found, over two hours. I stepped
into place at the end of the line.

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 31

"Gee," said a rather pretty looking girl who
had the place ahead of me, "we ain't got as
much show as a pair of pink eyed rabbits in a
den of snakes."

The child had a pinched, tired look, but
there was a half-whimsical expression on her
face — the ghost of a smile.

"After a clerking job?" asked the girl ahead.

"No, I want to be a waitress," I said.
"Haven't had any experience at clerking."

"Not for mine," said the child. "I've got
to get a clerk's job, and it's got to pay seven a
week, because I've got my mother and sister
to keep."

Just then a porter came out of an inner office
and began looking over the girls in the row.
He picked out the girl ahead and me and
beckoned to us.

"You two can step in," he said.

The little girl ahead shrank back. I did
not comprehend it then, but did later.

32 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"You go on in," she said to me. "I've lost
my nerve."

I stepped into the office and a gruff voice
ordered me to give my name, address, what
sort of a job I wanted, and my letters of refer-
ence.

I explained that I had no letter of reference,
but that I could give him the name of a re-
sponsible person to call on the telephone.

"Nothing doing," said the man. "Suppose
IVe got nothing to do but call people on the
telephone?"

I mumbled some sort of apology with flam-
ing cheeks. The man told me to get my letter
of recommendation and then call again.

I hurried out of the office. The young girl
who had "lost her nerve" met me outside. She
seemed to have been crying. She grasped my
arm and led me to one side.

"What did he say, Kid? Any chance?" she
questioned.

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 33

I told her about the letter of recommenda-
tion and her face fell.

"I knew it," she said, sadly. "You know
how it is — I can't get a letter of recommenda-
tion that would hold a spoonful of water. No
show for me in there. Well, good-by."

I asked the girl for her name and address,
and she gave them to me. Afterward I
visited her several times, but she has given
up her ambition to be a clerk. Poor child!

I was passing the line of girls near the man-
ager's office making my way out of the place,
when one of the weariest of the weary gather-
ing called out to me:

"Girlie! Looking for a job? If you are,
hurry upstairs and see Miss Nixon. She
wants a girl for the quick-lunch counter.
Hustle along and you can nick it."

A few minutes later I was upstairs inquir-
ing for the forewoman of the restaurant. The
person who came forward was fat and im-

34 MY BATTLES WITH YICE

posing. Again I was plied with questions
and given an application blank to fill out.
The scrutiny of that blank was not very close.
They needed a girl at once. The ordeal was
over. I was accepted. My hours were from
1 1 A. M. to 3 P. M. and from 4.30 to 8 P. M.
The pay was $4.50 a week for the morn-
ing work and 50 cents extra for work at
night.

Now there is a vast difference between see-
ing a thing done and actually doing it one's
self. You may think you can sense a situation
fully from observation, but that is a fallacy.
Do the thing yourself, and in a few minutes
you get a viewpoint that you had not supposed
could exist.

I had often wondered how it felt to shift
heavy trays loaded with dishes backward and
forward from a kitchen to a table perhaps
five or six rods away. I had watched wait-
resses, flushed and perspiring, hurrying to

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 35

serve impatient customers. Now I was in the
thick of it myself.

"Annie Tate — waitress." That was my
name on my first step toward the mysteries of
the underworld in the search for Mary
Holden.

It was already 1 1 o'clock, so the forewoman
put me at work immediately on "instructions."
First I was told to serve the hot drinks, then
collect the checks, then deposit the checks in
the cash box and bring back the sandwiches.

This method was employed so that cus-
tomers could not cheat the store. One check
paid for the drink and the sandwich.

Then I was taken out to the kitchen. There
I saw several red-armed young girls washing
dishes in boiling suds that I afterward found
contained some sort of chemical for cutting
grease. The chemical was so strong that the
girls soon became incapacitated from the in-
flammation it caused.

36 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

The poor girls seemed to have a hopeless
sort of task. One of them was very pretty—
the only one who spoke to me. I asked her
if she couldn't get a better job than that, and
she said that if she worked outside people
would see her. She preferred to be in the
kitchen. As I left her to go back to the
counter she surprised me by paraphrasing
Kipling's Sergeant Mulvaney with the whim-
sical remark: "I was a school teacher wanst,
but no matther."

I decided to see more of that girl later, and
I did. She will be heard from again in the
course of my story. I noticed that this girl
washed her dishes very carefully, but the
others seemed to have no desire to do more
than keep making motions.

A minute later I was working at the counter.
The noon-hour rush was just beginning.
Four girls beside myself and a head waitress
were running back and forth trying to serve

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 37

the customers, who all wanted to be served at
once. Most of the patronage seemed to con-
sist of shopgirls and clerks of various grades.

It was a scrambled phantasmagoria of
"Ham on rye," "Cheese on white," "Ham on
white," "Hurry up the checks," "Get out of
my road."

The head waitress was perpetually prod-
ding the girls on to greater effort. At first
they seemed to respond with alacrity, but as
time passed they grew rude and ugly, resent-
ing the constant nagging with remarks of their
own that one would never have suspected they
knew how to make. As the hours went by I
realized what a desperately hard life this wait-
ress work is. I found the turmoil and hustling
almost unbearable, but it was my job, so I stuck
to it like a leech.

The balls of my feet ached horribly. The
bones of my face and head began to pain me.
I remarked this to a pale, thin woman who was

38 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

sitting at the end of the counter. I brought
her an order of milk and apple pie. She
appeared to be in a state of intense nervous
excitement, and I asked her if she felt tired.

"Tired!" she blurted out. "Say, I'm be-
ginning to believe I can't die."

The woman told me she was sewing on chil-
dren's rompers for some tailoring firm. She
said she had to work in a little room with five
women, and there was only enough air for
two.

"I've got a little boy, and he's a cripple,"
she confided. "I suppose that is why the Lord
won't let me die."

I asked her why she didn't eat something
more digestible than pie, and she replied that
she had become used to eating quickly, and
pie was the quickest lunch she could get.

Just then the bell rang for us to go to our
luncheon, and the tired, thin woman dragged
herself away. Lunch was served free to em-

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 39

ployees of the counter. I ate very little, but
seized the opportunity to go out for a breath
of fresh air. There were two girls outside
from another department. One of them spoke
to me, and after we had conversed a few min-
utes I asked her where she lived.

"Me and Mame's living in a vaudeville
house out South, and we're studyin' for the
stage," she said. "There's a fellow there fix-
ing up a turn for us. Pretty soon we'll be
going on the road."

I returned to the counter for the afternoon
shift feeling somewhat refreshed. I deter-
mined to observe more closely the details of
the place. The four kinds of sandwiches were
divided into two lots and placed at each end
of the counter. Ham on white and rye bread
were at one end and the cheese sandwiches at
the other.

The tanks holding the liquids were placed
in the center and a shelf under the counter for

40 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

cups placed them in a difficult position. The
counter was arranged without a thought for
the girls who worked at it. Unnecessary steps
the length of the counter were required. The
constant reaching for those badly placed cups
caused my knees to ache fearfully. I thought
of suggesting a change in the location of the
materials to be served, but I spoke to one of
the girls about it and she said: "For Gawd's
sake, tell that to Barney; I'd like to notice
whether she'd give you time to get your
hat."

Then for a few minutes the girl became con-
fidential, and I felt sorry for her, poor thing.
She told me she kept house for her father,
brother and nephew, being motherless. They
were trying to get a home together, she said.

"The work is hard here," I remarked.

"Hard here?" she snorted. "Why, I got up
at six this morning and did the whole family
wash, and my slob of a brother refused to

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 41

straighten the kitchen so that I could get a
few minutes' rest before I came down here."

"You ought to make them help you," I ven-
tured.

"Say," she answered, "you don't know. I'm
English and Englishmen make truck horses of
their women."

The clerks and working girls I had seen
were coming back now for their supper.
Their orders were not very much. Five cents
for lunch and ten cents for supper — sandwich,
coffee, and pie, the evening extravagance.
They lived on that fare for weeks and months
at a time until their stomachs revolted and they
had doctors' bills to pay. This crisis in their
lives was variously met. I am coming to that
later. Poor little girls with their pasty faces
and pale lips!

I went into the kitchen with a plate to hold
out for my supper. The cook reached into a
tin and pulled out a piece of meat with his

42 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

fingers, slapping it on the plate. He reached
again and slapped a handful of mashed pota-
toes beside the meat I fled. It was time to
go to the cashier for my fifty cents extra. The
cashier was a girl of about twenty. She was
cross and irritable. She spoke insultingly to
girls but her insults did not stop there. I saw
a woman customer step up to the cage and
heard her ask if the dining-room was closed.

"Yes," said the cashier.

The woman made a petulant remark.

"Why the don't you do your cooking

at home?" demanded the cashier, as the cus-
tomer shrank away.

Well, it is all in the point of view. When
I reached home and had immersed myself in
a porcelain tub I began to recover.

My self-respect returned in leaps and
bounds. I realized what an important part
environment plays in the matter of self-respect.
I wondered how long I could keep mine work-

I WORK AS A WAITRESS 43

ing under such conditions as those of my first
working day. Suppose I had been compelled
to return to a chilly, ill-furnished room instead
of to a cheery, harmonious household and a
sympathetic mother?

It isn't invariably the costume of the woman
of fashion or the blazing resplendent show
window that tempts the girl adrift. It is more
often just the human need for love and shelter
—the lack of a friendly hand-clasp that shall
lighten to-morrow's labor — the sympathy and
understanding that breed hope.

CHAPTER III

I BECOME A CLERK

I SUPPOSE I was not a very competent waitress.
At all events my employers did not seem par-
ticularly impressed with the value of my
services. In a few days I was looking for
another job. My position was the same on
the surface as that in which thousands of in-
competent girls find themselves every day —
but most of them haven't good homes to go to
when they are out of work.

It was purely by luck that I obtained my
second place. I was engaged to clerk in a
large department store during the Christmas
rush season. My place was in the basement.
Several girls had fallen out of the ranks the
night before I was engaged. Another girl
told me they "had to get Christmas money."

44

I BECOME A CLERK 45

I was turned over to a floor walker, who
demonstrated the cash register, told me quali-
ties and prices of goods and other things.
Then I was ordered to go to the rest room and
hang up my hat.

The rest room struck me as rather a joke.
It was 10 by 20 feet and crowded with girls.
A table covered with oilcloth ran along one
side of it. The girls were eating sandwiches
and pie. On a dilapidated couch in a corner
of the room lay a girl who was crying from
headache. Nobody paid any attention to her.
A very slovenly matron was in attendance.
All the coat hangers were full, so I climbed
on a locker and found a niche for my things.
From this point I also discovered that there
were no outside windows — just holes cut for
ventilation. The air that came through these
holes was from the basement. It was drawn
down by an electric fan, and, moreover, it was
very foul.

46 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

The floor walker again took charge of me
and showed me my counter. It was a doll
counter, upon which all sorts of dolls, books,
and games were placed. After once entering
the counter the clerk is not permitted to leave
without a pass from the floor walker.

The girl in charge of the counter was called
Lil. I have never encountered so peculiar a
personality. Her face was lacquered with
whitewash and her hair, under a net, was
oiled, twisted and flat. Her bangs were
shaped into "spit" curls and plastered flat to
her forehead. Her face was without a vestige
of expression. She was rather nice in her
manner to me, possibly because I said little
to her.

I watched this girl closely in order to get
a line on what I must do. She spoke quite
softly to me, but she continually cursed the
other girls, calling them horrible names under

I BECOME A CLERK 47

her breath. I don't know why she did this ;
there did not seem to be any reason for it.
She spoke in tones just low enough to escape
the ear of the floor walker.

A small girl named Maud, about sixteen
years old, waited at my end of the counter
next to me. She was soiled and tousled — so
slouchy that I wondered how she managed to
get work. I asked her if this was her first
job and her reply was illuminating.

"Naw," she grinned. "IVe had thirty jobs
so far in my sweet young life — factories and
mail order houses are my meat."

I must have looked at her commiseratingly,
because her old-young face took on an expres-
sion that seemed more human as she leaned
toward me and said:

"I'm engaged, Kid— but don't spill it."

I tried to hustle about in that place and see
what enterprise could do toward gaining ap-

48 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

proval from the "great chief," — our floor
walker. My efforts made no impression on
him at all.

"What's the good working for him?" said
little Maud. "Why, that guy's got to come
down all hours of the day and night to clean
up and mark goods. He's all to the winky
blink. It don't make no difference to him
whether you live or die, because he is so near
'dead himself."

The crowds increased toward the noon hour.
The basement became almost intolerable —
hot, close and seething with chatter. I was
afraid I might not be able to stand it and was
very much relieved when the bell rang for
luncheon.

I hurried into the dressing room and was
clambering on the locker after my things when
I felt some one take hold of my hand and
turned around to see a rather smart-looking
fellow about twenty standing beside me.

I BECOME A CLERK 49

"Kid," he began, "come on. I'll blow you
to the beans."

"Thanks," I answered, "beans don't agree
with me."

"Shoot the beans," he persisted. "Lady
Vere can order patty de fossy gras and joy
bubbles if she wants 'em."

Again I refused the invitation. He went
away very angry.

"Believe me, Kid," he called back, over his
shoulder, "you'll get tired of paying for
lunches on your rake-off."

I told one of the girls about this episode and
she stared at me unbelievingly.

"Why, you fool," she whispered, "he's re-
lated to one of the bosses upstairs and he's got
money to burn a city with. It was the chance
of your life."

Then she motioned for me to step into a
corner, and in a whisper she continued:
"Why, that fellow treated a girl so nice down

50 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

here, that she just got up and quit. Some of
the girls say that he is supporting her. He
sure did buy her fine clothes."

"And what was the girl's name?" I inquired.

"Mary," she replied.

"Mary — Mary what?" I asked eagerly.

"Mary Holden."

"Mary Holden," I repeated.

"Yes."

I remained quite stunned for a few mo-
ments. Indeed, I was on the track of the
missing girl. She had worked here in this
store. And the flippant youth?, He had
bought her clothes, and dinners! I hurried
out of the building. I had so much to think
over, and I was so fatigued. I needed food
and air, and a place to think.

CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST CLEW

I RETURNED to the store, my mind fully made
up to find Mary and to make the over-dressed
youth tell me her address. As I entered the
basement the place rang with rough conversa-
tion relating to dance hall orgies in which
some of the girls had participated.

Maud, my small companion of the counter,
sat silent in a corner, drinking in the talk.
Maud was getting her ideas of deportment,
ideals of conduct, notions of life. She was
getting them in a dangerous school. By the
time they reached her they were twisted out
of respectable recognition. Here was a girl
adrift receiving impressions.

My time was up. I returned to work. The

51

52 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

girls seemed quite friendly. Maud came back
to the counter and in a childish way she put
her arm around my waist.

"You for me, Doll," she smiled.

Nobody ever tried to find out my real name.
I was either "Doll," "Kid," "Flossie," or
"Flip." It simplified matters a great deal,
because I several times forgot names I had
given and was afraid of being confronted with
my own perfidy.

There was a great deal of dissension be-
tween Maud and Lil. The two hurled oaths
at each other that could not be improved on
by any longshoreman my imagination can con-
jure.

Maud told me that Lil was a "rounder, and
no good."

"Say," the child confided, "that wedding
ring the tramp is wearing is phony. She got
it at a 5 cent store. She ain't never married
long." ~

THE FIRST CLEW, 53

Customers were crowding round the coun-
ters, pushing, jostling, shouting their wants.
It was pandemonium. The constant run-
ning back and forth and high reaching for
shelf goods made me deathly tired. I brought
into play muscles I seemed never to have used
before.

Then there was the string. Tyros can't
break string properly. It is a knack one has
to learn. I had a deep raw groove in the
under side of my little finger from breaking
string. I suppose somebody could have
taught me to do the trick correctly in five
minutes, but nobody did.

"Move along there, Flip."

I looked around and saw a new girl behind
the counter. She said she'd been put on the
job with me. Here was the most persistent
questioner I had yet encountered. She was
very slim-waisted, graceful in a certain rep-
tilian way, and her hair was piled high with

54 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

puffs. I think she had been a brunette, but
if so she had quarreled with Providence.

"My name's Sadie," volunteered my new
friend. "Say, where do you live, Kid? You
don't look like you traveled the route."

I mumbled something about living at Chi-
cago Avenue and North Clark Street, and she
rapped out a remark that it was a "tough

corner."

"What do you get a week?" pursued Sadie,
breezing along in her offhand way.

"Only $6 now," I answered.

"How are you going to live on that?" she
demanded.

"Well," I sighed hypocritically, "it will
mean going without many things."

"Oh, yes, it will," snapped Sadie. "Go
without nothing you can. See these."

"These" flashed for an instant as Sadie exe-
cuted a rather daring kick. They were "near-
silk."

THE FIRST CLEW 55

"I got them from a guy last night," the girl
went on. "Don't let nothing get away from
you that you can grab. Say, dearie, it's easy.
Get a guy and ring him up for a five. Can
you dance?"

"Yes," I confessed, "but a girl doesn't get
much chance to go anywhere when she is a
stranger."

uAw, sure you can," grinned Sadie, amazed
at my simplicity. "Say, Kid, I'll take you to
Dreamland. It won't cost us a cent if we
make a killing. There's always a bunch of
guys around there and it's dead easy to date
up."

"What is dating up?" I pleaded.

"Greener than the green hills," muttered
Sadie, sotto voce. Then she added, aloud:
"By Gee. I'm goin' to give you the time of
your life, Kid. You gotta be wised up. Get
on the job," she hissed in conclusion. "Here
comes the devil."

56 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I looked around. Mooney, the floor
walker, was approaching. Sadie said he was
picking out the girls to be discharged and the
ones to be retained at the close of that day's
work.

"Doesn't the store give any notice?" I asked.
"I cannot afford to be without work."

"Raus mittum," laughed Sadie. "If they
tie a tin to us we'll both go over to the mail
order. Say! See that yellow-haired fellow
over there? He's asked me out to lunch, but
he frames like a piker. Anyway, it's thirty-
five cents in my kick and I'll let him spend it.
Here's some gum. Don't let Mooney see you
looking cow-eyed — gum ain't allowed. So
long, Kid; see you after supper."

I watched Sadie's lithe form and her too
blonde head with its flashing crystal set combs
as she undulated through the throng and dis-
appeared. I turned back to my work. There
stood Mooney. Lil was watching him closely.

THE FIRST CLEW 57

The other girls eyed him with painful inten-
sity. He just stood and looked at us a moment
and then passed on. That settled it, Lil said.
Not one of us had been chosen to stay on.
There would be a new crew after Christmas.

"The stiff!" Lil snorted— " and me down
here working over hours packing goods.
Well, it's back to the mail order for mine. If
I'd known I wasn't going to stick I'd have
gone to the dance with the bunch to-night.
Say! You ought to see my regular do the
trot!"

A comical expression grew on her white-
washed face and she wiggled her shoulders,
first one, then the other, contorting her body
grotesquely as she sang under her breath:
"It's a bear — it's a bear — it's a bear." An in-
stant later she was holding her hand over her
heart and gasping: "My God, I'm all in,
Kid. I couldn't trot ner nothin' else to-
night."

58 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I looked up and noticed that the flippant
youth, son of one of the bosses upstairs, was
standing at my counter eyeing me closely. I
had something to say to him.

He spoke first.

"Hello, Kid."

"Hello," I retorted.

"Sorry you couldn't take me up this noon,"
he continued. "We might have had a fine
feed." He smiled and showed his imperfect
teeth.

"I don't know you well enough for that," I
said.

"Oh, introductions are not necessary here.
Why, one Kid who worked here treated me
right, and, say, I couldn't do enough for her."

"That girl was Mary Holden." Even now
I don't know what made me blurt out the
name.

"How did you know?" he demanded,
slightly taken back.

THE FIRST CLEW 59

"Oh, sfie told me," I answered. "I wish I
knew where I could find her. We are good
friends, you know."

"Is that so. I'll tell you where she is." He
looked around to see if anybody was watching.
Then he took a note-book from his pocket and
obligingly read off an address for me which I
jotted down.

"You'll find her there," he laughed. "Give
her my best." And he walked off, favoring
me with a wink of his bloodshot eye.

I looked at the address and could hardly
believe my eyes. The number and street was
in one of the most questionable parts of the
city. Poor Mary Holden — poor little girls
adrift!

It was the night before Christmas. And
misery was all about me. How my heart
ached for those countless, motherless, home-
less girls about me. Some of them never sur-
vived the strain of that Christmas season.

60 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

They wanted to give. They did give — too
much.

Shoppers were heartless. In haste to secure
service before the stores closed they raved and
threatened. From one side of the counter to
the other I worked. It was like a nightmare.
The cut under my little finger was bleeding
badly. I cried whenever I tried to break
string. My feet throbbed. Some of the girls
were in their stocking feet — it was impossible
to stand the pressure of shoes.

I looked up. There stood the girl I had
seen that first day while looking for work.
She had on a new hat and coat.

"Merry Christmas," she cried. "I came
over just to wish it to you."

"And Merry Christmas to you, dear," I an-
swered. The child looked at me pitifully and
her eyes fell. She was crying. An instant
later she pointed at the hat and coat she wore

THE FIRST CLEW 61

and stepped back to show me new shoes and
stockings.

"I've got money now," she sobbed, "but no
Merry Christmas, girlie — they got my number
all right."

Before I could say another word she was
gone. That night I wept myself to sleep.
The bells were ringing out "Peace on Earth,
Good Will to Men." Poor little girl adrift!

CHAPTER V

NELLIE DALY'S MEAL TICKET

THE boarding-house keepers of large cities
are often the world's most practical humani-
tarians. The 'stout woman, sometimes of a
forbidding aspect, whose portly presence
strikes terror into the heart of the little girl
seeking work and a place to live in an un-
known town, is often the girl's best friend and
her readiest resource in the time of stress.

It is true that there are always societies and
organizations to which the girl out of work
may appeal for assistance if she is lucky
enough to know where they are, or even to be
aware of their existence at all, but what the
girl needs when she is depressed with hunger

and her power of resistance to the "man with

62

NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 63

the dinner" is weakened by deprivation, is
some big-hearted soul on the spot with a bowl
of hot soup and a kind word.

I credit the rooming-house and boarding-
house keepers with having saved many souls.

Here is a case that will illustrate my point.
I am thinking of little Nellie Daly, a sixteen-
year-old child possessed of that extraordinary
beauty which comes of mixing the Irish and
Scandinavian races. Nellie's mother was a
wonderful blonde and her father a black-
haired West-of-Ireland man.

Nellie had the long, dark lashes and blue-
gray eyes of her father and great masses of
golden-blond hair like her mother. She was
slight of stature, but her figure was perfect.

This child appealed to me when I met her
for the first time. She was employed in an en-
velope addressing department of a mail order
concern and her pay was $5 a week. Her
room was in a house on Indiana Street, right

64 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

in the middle of what used to be a particularly
disreputable district before they began clean-
ing out the dives of that locality. But Nellie's
boarding-house keeper, Mrs. McCarthy, was
a motherly soul.

Nellie paid $2 for her room. That left her
$3 to live on, dress on and pay for all other
necessaries and amusements. Nellie's people
were in the theatrical line. At the time I met
her the father had been ill and both parents
were having a hard time of it in some town on
the southern circuit, where they had become
stranded.

One day, in a burst of confidence, Nellie
told me that her meal ticket cost $3. Putting
two and two together I realized that my little
friend was spending her whole income just
to eat and sleep. I wondered how she paid
for her washing. That is why I called on
good-hearted Mrs. McCarthy one Sunday
morning to have a little chat with her.

NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 65

"The Lord only knows what'll become of
the poor baby," said Mrs. McCarthy, as we
stood in the door of a little two by twice apart-
ment on the fourth floor of her house.

Inside I saw Nellie's tousled blonde head
half buried in a pillow. Her face had the
look that comes upon a child's face after she
has cried herself to sleep.

"She's the lucky girl to be where she is
right now," whispered Mrs. McCarthy, "be-
cause 'Bull' Tevis is after her these three
weeks. Saturday she was getting ready to go
out with him when I happened up here with
a plate of stew that was left over from dinner.

"She lied to me first, and then I made her
eat the stew, and when she'd eaten it she just
threw her arms round me and cried so she
shook from her toes to the top of her head —
the poor darlin'."

"Who is Tevis?" I ventured.

"Don't you know the scout that has been up

66 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

twice already for runnin' girls into them holes
out South? I told the child about him the
first time he showed his face at this door to
call for her. She said she'd never been out
with him, but he always wanted to take her
to dinner.

"And after she ate the stew she took off her
hat and then while I sat with her she took off
her little best shoes and stockings and sat there
barefoot wrigglin' her toes.

" 'Mother McCarthy,' she says, 'I ain't
never been out with Tevis and I ain't
never going out with him, but I know one of
the girls that has been out with him, and she
says he buys swell things to eat. But I'm not
hungry no more now, Mother McCarthy,
God bless you,' she says, 'so hang Tevis,' she
says.

"Then I sat and visited with her and petted
her till she went to sleep just like you see her
now, and right glad I am I come up with

NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 67

that plate of stew. Before she went to sleep
she told me how she was living. It'd make
your heart ache to hear her.

"Five dollars a week, you see. There's two
for the room — and God knows I've got to have
the money or I can't have a roof over her or
me neither.

"Well, the meal ticket she buys costs $3,
and she told me how she had been making one
meal ticket last two weeks. They got out
some new-fangled kind of a ticket that had
funny ornamental didoes on to one end of it.

"About the middle of the second week poor
Nellie lost track of how many meals she had
eaten, and it wasn't until Friday night that she
found out those didoes wasn't meals. Then
she tried to stay in bed from Friday to Mon-
day when she had four 'days' pay coming.
They'd laid her off Thursday night. Satur-
day morning Tevis called and wanted to have
her meet him in Clark Street. That poor

68 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

dear was so hungry by then she was going to
take a chance with the snake charmer for just
one dinner. But she's all right now."

I have told the tale of Nellie Daly and good
Mrs. McCarthy because there are thousands
of Nellies and, I am thankful to say, hundreds
of Mrs. McCarthys in Chicago, and, in fact,
every large city.

From statistics I have gathered it is per-
fectly certain to me that the most valuable
first aid to morality in Chicago or any other
big city is the boarding-house woman. Often
she either has or has had sons or daughters of
her own. She is generally poor and often
hard beset with the problems of life on her
own account, but in nine cases out of ten she
will tide the poor girl lodging in her house
over a crisis like that which confronted Nellie
Daly.

Often these good women carry girls through
unemployment for weeks without security and

NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 69

for no reasons whatever except those of hu-
manity. The boarding-house woman doesn't
ask a million questions about the girl who
comes to her door. She takes the girl in and
gives her a bed and finds out what chance she
has to pay afterwards.

CHAPTER VI

"BULL" TEVIS

I WANT to refer to the type that "Bull" Tevis
represents. This man I happen to know.
He tried to get me to join him at dinner one
evening while I was working as a clerk in a
downtown department store.

Tevis has an ingratiating manner. It might
almost be attractive if one hadn't happened to
find out what the man is. Tevis has a great
deal of very dark hair that curls low on his
forehead. He has a smile that often attracts
poor girls who haven't anybody to smile on
them and whose days are spent under the per-
petual nagging of the "bawler out."

Tevis has little, dark, beady eyes like a rat;
his jaw is a trifle undershot. His clothes are

TO

"BULL" TEVIS 71

always natty and he wears a diamond in his
scarf. Tevis has about four to five hundred
girls in the downtown district on his "mark-
down" list. His methods are subtle — educa-
tional, one might say. -He buys several fine
dinners, I understand, before showing his
fangs. He is careful not to flush the game
until he has pretty well barred the avenues
of escape. He has established a state of
friendship which permits him to lend the girl
money, demanding nothing in return — a
"brotherly-love" sort of loan.

Why, I have heard girls swear by this man.
I have had a perfectly good girl stand and
plead with me, tears in her eyes, not to mis-
judge Tevis, because she knew him and knew
him for one of the best men God ever made.

But Tevis always collects — always. When
a girl gets so involved that she doesn't know
which way to turn, Tevis is ever on hand to
show her a way out.

72 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

Tevis' "way out" is merely one of the in-
genious ramifications of the System that leads
further in. In the end the girl disappears
completely from haunts that knew her, and the
work of Tevis is complete. Little girl adrift!
What chance has she against these subtly
trained and carefully groomed servants of the
System? If they cannot get her one way they
will another, and the whole strength of the
organization protects the procurers. So-
ciety's scattered forces resist feebly, but the
System moves safely and surely to a definite
end.

Indirectly I discovered that "Bull" Tevis
had Mary Holden's name on his "watch list."
I had not forgotten the street and number
where that flashily dressed youth in the de-
partment store basement told me Mary lived.
I decided to try my luck. Little did I realize
what a task it would be to rescue the girl.

In a taxicab I was driven up to the address

"BULL" TEVIS 73

which was in the most questionable part of
Chicago.

"So this is where Mary lives," I solilo-
quized. "I can't believe it."

Up a rickety flight of stairs I walked. I
rang the bell on the door. The house had the
customary red front of houses in that locality.
The door was opened by a large colored
woman, who peered out at me cautiously.

"Is Mary in?" I asked.

"Who are you?" demanded the woman,
evading my question.

\ "I'm an old friend," I answered, slipping a
five dollar note into her hand.

"Come in," she said slyly. "I'll get Mary
for you."

I entered the house and the woman told me
to wait in the parlor while she went upstairs
for Mary.

I sat in one of the high-backed rose-velvet
chairs. In a glance I had taken in the con-

74 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

tents of the room with its cheap oil paintings
of nude art, the gilded wicker chairs, and its
heavy Battenberg draperies, all of which be-
trayed the character of the house. I looked
up. Down the staircase came a girl. Her
face, pale, save for the rouge, and black pen-
ciling, stood out in high relief against the
shadows that played up and down the
hall.

"You came to see me?" she started. "Who
are you and what do you want with me?"

"I want to help you," I replied.

"I don't need any help."

"Perhaps you do?"

"Not from strangers, anyway," she retorted,
as if fearful to commit herself.

Her eyes looked into mine.

"I never saw you before in my life," she
said suspiciously.

"That does not matter," I returned. "I
want to get you out of this place."

"BULL" TEVIS 75

"You can't. We're watched." She glanced
over her shoulder cautiously.

"Tell me your name?" I asked, in a friendly
manner. "Tell me your real, honest name,
the one your mother calls you by," I pleaded.

A spasm of pain crossed the girl's face. I
had hit upon the right chord.

"It is Mary," she whispered.

"Mary Holden?" I demanded.

"How did you know?"

"Because I have come from your mother.
I wrote to her and promised I would bring
her little girl back to her." I looked around
the room. "We must get out of here," I con-
tinued.

"My mother? Where is she?" she asked
with eagerness.

"Back in Limaville, waiting for you, long-
ing to hold you in her arms again."

The girl quivered. Her large brown eyes
filled with tears.

76 MY BATTLES WITH YICE

"They won't let me go," she sobbed. "If I
only could go — "

"Quick," I said, "I'll get you out."

I started out into the hall followed by Mary.
I noiselessly turned the knob, threw open the
door, and came face to face with "Bull" Tevis.

"What's the game, Kid?" he said to me,
blocking our exit with his arms. He sensed
the situation.

"We wanted a little air, that's all," I replied.

"So that's it, is it? You " and a curse

fell from his lips. "You'll not get her." He
rushed forward to strike Mary. His upheld
fist was about to descend upon her head when
I tripped him and he sprawled out upon the
floor. In an instant he was on his feet. He
made after me. One hand catching my throat,
he forced me back into the corner.

"I'm going to get you, and get you good,"
he muttered in a guttural tone.

Mary saw her opportunity and availed her-

"BULL" TEVIS 77

self of it. She fled through the open front
door and disappeared.

Tevis held me tight in his grasp.

"You'll not get away so easily," he sneered.

jr..

CHAPTER VII

AT THE CAFE SINISTER

TEVIS was about to strike me with his fist. He
stepped forward; and then he stepped back.
He might have accomplished his purpose had
not a new actor appeared in this thrilling
drama. The flippant youth, who had given
me Mary's address in the department store
basement, entered from a side room.

" 'Bull,' " said the youth, "what's up?"

'This Kid got noisy and—"

The young man stood staring at me.

"What! do you know her?" asked Tevis.
"Who is she, Bill?"

Without answering Tevis, Bill walked over
to me with an outstretched hand. I avoided
it

78

AT THE CAFE SINISTER 79

"Hello, Kid," he said. "Glad to see you
again. Is Tevis trying to scare you?" Then
he turned to Tevis : "Easy, easy, I say. This
Kid is all to the mustard."

"Good day, gentlemen," I sai'd, and to my
surprise I was permitted to leave the house.

During that day I tried in vain to get a
trace of Mary. That evening I met Lil, and
we decided to visit the Cafe Sinister.

The waiter wore a shouting red necktie with
a diamond as big as a filbert sparkling from
its folds. His face had the par-boiled appear-
ance that characterizes complexions among
the male habitues of the levee. He smiled
ingratiatingly at Lil and me.

We were among the early arrivals at the
Cafe Sinister, than which there is no more
spectacularly gilded, no more brilliantly
lighted hall of evil fame within the System's
sphere of influence.

Lil had agreed to show me the sights —

8o MY BATTLES WITH VICE

to direct the process of getting me "wised-
up."

I had never in my life before worn such
clothes as I wore that night, nor such a hat.
The former was a semi-decollete of vivid wine
color, and the latter sported huge black plumes
that made me feel topheavy. Lil waxed mo-
mentarily enthusiastic over my appearance and
insisted that I was a "bear," but she seemed
very tired.

A dozen or more couples sat about at scat-
tered tables. Some of the girls far outshone
me in decorative extravagance, so I did not,
perhaps, appear as conspicuous as I felt.

There were several entertainers lounging
about the place. A self-possessed youth with
a long dark cowlick that constantly fell over
his eyes and had to be shaken back, sang a
ballad and looked at me right in the eyes as
he did so, but the ballad was sentimental and

AT THE CAFfi SINISTER 81

the habitues of the place did not like it. A
big blonde woman sitting alone at a table re-
marked stridently that it was too early for
that "home and mother" stuff.

At another table — the one nearest our own
— sat a girl of about eighteen, a pretty, dark-
haired, sloe-eyed child with a flushed face.
Beside her was a gray-haired man. His eyes
were nearly closed, but he proved to be wide
awake when anything happened to attract his
attention. The girl was humming little
snatches of a cafe song with a ragtime refrain,
beating time on the table top with the rim of
a wine glass. I thought the girl did not look
well. I spoke to Lil about her.

"Pie-eyed," was my companion's terse com-
ment. "She ain't going to last the evening
out."

The jeweled waiter brought two glasses of
some dark liquid Lil had ordered. Lil said

82 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

the drinks were "ginger ale highballs." I
tasted mine and it was vile. It burned my
throat as it went down.

I continued to observe the pretty girl and
the gray-haired man at the other table. The
man might have been the girl's father. He
was certainly old enough. I noticed that he
drank little but often filled the girl's glass
from a silver-topped bottle.

A young fellow who looked like a chauffeur
in his puttees and a cap came in and spoke to
the gray-haired man, who shook his head and
the chauffeur went outside again. Just then
the gray-haired man caught Lil's eye and
nodded to her. She gave him a little wave
of her glove in return.

"Who is that man?" I asked.

"Say, Kid," Lil whispered, "take it from
me, he's a heller. That's Ike— 'Gray Ike,'
they call him. Know what he's doing with
that little doll? Buyin' her wine, see. Know

AT THE CAFfi SINISTER 83

who's payin' for it? Him! Not Ike. Not
in ten thousand years, Kid — she is."

"But he paid for the last bottle," I declared.
"I saw him get the change."

"Kid," yawned the sophisticated Lil, pat-
ting her gaping jaws with her hand, "Kid,
that's just an investment for quick returns.
It ain't his coin, see? He's a trailer for the
gang. He'll get all that back and a bundle
besides when he turns her over."

Soon I heard hysterical sobbing. Turning
quickly, I saw that the dark-haired girl was
crying. She had a crumpled handkerchief
pressed to her eyes with both hands. The
gray-haired man had risen and was shaking
her by the shoulders.

"Come out of it," he ordered sharply.
"Come out of that, now — you're all right."

The girl took the handkerchief from her
eyes and turned up a tear-stained face to laugh
at the man.

84 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Ain't I the little fool?" the girl giggled —
"ain't I the limit for a fool? Say!"

But the girl was soon crying again, and I
saw the chauffeur again standing in the back-
ground. The girl began wailing aloud. She
tried to rise and staggered. I thought I heard
her say, "I want to go to mother."

The gray-haired man nodded to the chauf-
feur. The waiter with the diamond came for-
ward, and the three men half carried, half
dragged the dark-haired girl toward the door.
She struggled and fought.

Just then the orchestra struck up a popular
ragtime air. The fat blonde woman at the
table on the other side began singing. The
girl kept screaming. For an instant I forgot
my part, standing up from the chair with an
indignant exclamation. Lil seized my wrist
and dragged me back with an oath.

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE

"You little fool," whispered Lil, fiercely —
"think you're going to butt in on that stunt?"

"But they are taking her away," I almost
screamed. "They're just dragging her."

"Say," snapped my companion, "don't you
try to do any reforming around here — not in
a joint like this, Kid. If you take care of
yourself you'll have all you can look after."

"But that poor girl," I gasped.

"It's a red kimono for hers, and not much
else. Do you get me?" Lil replied. "You
couldn't help her if you howled all night,
so here's how."

Lil drained her glass and I saw her shiver.
It may have been the liquor. I shivered, too,

8s

86 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

when she made me drink mine, but, strange
to say, it did not affect me otherwise. I was
too much excited. Outside I heard the horn
of a taxicab.

The waiter came over to fill our glasses
and I thought he stared rather queerly at me
as he said:

"Maizie's pickled to the gills, the little
fool. Beats all how good he is to her, too
— buys her everything her heart could wish
for, but she will souse. Guess they're goin'
to California to-morrow."

Lil grinned sardonically.

"Crazy about California, ain't he?" she re-
marked. "Makes about four trips a year,,
don't he?"

"Well, you see, some people can't stand
these winters in Chi," laughed the waiter.

The farewell wail of that little girl adrift,
gone away in the taxi with the sleepy-eyed,

WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 87

gray-haired man rang in my ears. I wanted
to leave the place then, thinking I had seen
enough, but Lil wouldn't go.

"Here's a couple of guys," she whispered.
"They're just rounders from a hotel. String
'em along."

Two well dressed men approached, bowed
to us and on Lil's acknowledgment seated
themselves at our table. One seemed about
forty-five years old. I thought the other
was rather younger.

"Waiting at the church, girls?" inquired
the elder man jocosely.

"Studyin' types for a novel," retorted Lil,
with such readiness that I shot a glance at
her painted, expressionless face to see whether
she had discovered me. But no, it was Lil's
little gift of repartee.

"How're you suited, then?" inquired the
younger man, good naturedly.

88 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"You'll do," laughed Lil. "Say, this place
is like a morgue to-night. Why don't some-
body start something?"

The younger of the two men clapped his
hands and a waiter hurried across the floor.
I whispered to the waiter that I wasn't feel-
ing well and that I wanted ginger ale. To
my astonishment he filled the order. It
looked the same as the other drinks and Lil
never knew.

The older man of our party told a story
about a traveling salesman and a stewardess
on a steamboat. I only understood half of
it, but that half was vile.

Lil laughed. She said she first heard the
story on a farm in Oklahoma. I knew she
had never been in Oklahoma. Then the
other man told a story, but it was not so bad.
I have noticed during my investigations
that tkw ol man who frequents low places
is generally too low to fall much farther.

5VHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 89

Both men left about n o'clock, after we
had refused an invitation to a late supper.
Lil said we ought to have accepted, but it
would have been an "all night job" and she
had to have some sleep.

A little while after that Lil stepped to an-
other table where a man and a girl were sit-
ting whom she knew. The place was
crowded with parties of drunken men and wo-
men by this time and the calliope piano kept
up an incessant banging and clanging of rag-
time. Occasionally the fellow with the cow-
lick front hair or another man, a dwarf,
would sing disgusting songs.

As soon as I was left alone for a moment,
a rather good looking young fellow came over
and sat down beside me.

"How is traffic?" he inquired.

"Not very good," I answered — I didn't
know what to say.

"New in town?" he pursued.

90 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Yes," I stammered, "I'm from the West."

"Things slow out there?" he asked sym-
pathetically.

"Not much doing," I rejoined.

"Well, let's have a drink," chirped my
casual friend. I glanced anxiously toward
where Lil was sitting. She was oblivious.
A drink had been served her at the other
table. But the waiter again brought me gin-
ger ale and I was thankful.

"Chi's all right," volunteered my compan-
ion, "but the game's been crabbed by a lot
of old crowbaits that want to run the earth
from the Y.M.C.A. A girl can do well
enough here, though, if she plays in with the
stir. I'm round here right along and I can
put you wise to the live ones. Say, what's
your name?"

I gave him a false name and a number in
Clark Street. These seemed to satisfy him
of my depravity.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 91

"Tell you what I'll do," pursued the so-
licitous stranger, "I'll give you a knockdown
to a friend of mine that's getting the money
in fruit baskets. She's got an eight room flat
a couple of blocks away. It's very exclu-
sive— only the highest class trade. iWith
your get up you'll cop the kale, believe me.
Say, I like you, Kid. What d'you say?"

"Give me the number and I'll run in some
time to-morrow," I promised.

The young man gave me a card with a
name and street number. Just then Lil came
back and the fellow excused himself, favor-
ing me with a parting wink which I took to
enjoin secrecy.

"Bah!" she snapped. "Don't play his
game — play your own. Say, d'ye know who
that guy is? That's 'Simp' Simon, but,
believe me, he ain't no simp. He's a wise
crook and he'll put you on the skids, Kid, if
you give him a chance. I hadn't orta left

92 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

you alone, but I ain't seen Ide since she was
married; and say, what d'you think? She's
goin' to have a baby."

I glanced at Ide. She was drinking
heavily. Already she was visibly intoxi-
cated.

"Is that man her husband?" I ventured.

"Naw!" laughed Lil, "that's just a guy.
Her husband's a traveling man."

It was nearly two o'clock and I was dead
tired, as well as sick of the sights and the
sounds. I begged Lil to go to a car with
me. The cars passed the door.

Five minutes later I was on my way home.
Lil went back to the cafe. She said she
guessed she would stay with Ide that night
over at Ide's flat.

Oh, how good home looked that night!
I kissed the spotless pillows of my little white
bed before my weary head touched them.

Next morning at breakfast my mother

WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 93

handed me a newspaper. On the front page
was an account of a pretty girl's suicide in
a south side rooming house. The descrip-
tion haunted me until I visited a Wabash
avenue morgue where her body lay.

The dead girl was Maizie — poor lost sis-
ter Maizie of the cafe. I cried a good deal
that day.

The gray-haired man with the half -shut
eyes no doubt has found another tenant for
the red kimono Lil spoke of.

CHAPTER IX

THE TRAIL OF [WATCHFUE JOHNNY

MARTHA COLE was just a little girl of fifteen,
working in a mail order house when I met
her. I was working in the same mail order
house looking for experience.

Martha came from a little country town
and her mother was very poor. [Che father
had been a railroad man — had died in an ac-
cident. There were two other children and
Martha had to contribute as far as possible
to the support of the family.

The little girl was paid six dollars a week.
While plainly clad, she was neat, and with
her dark brown hair, big, lustrous eyes and
slight, childish figure, she was undeniably
attractive.

94

THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 95

Martha's mother fell ill something •ver
a year ago and the child was appealed to for
funds. She was then employed as a cashier.

There was no way in the world for Martha
to help her mother except by borrowing
money. She tried to do this and failed.
Then she took fifteen dollars from the cash
of the firm and sent it to her poverty-stricken
home. For nine weeks she replaced a small
amount each week out of her pay, intending
ultimately to discharge the whole debt.
Then the cash was audited and she was dis-
covered.

In a flood of tears she told her story.
Twenty minutes later she was in the street
without a friend, without a character, a sick
mother on her hands and no prospect of hon-
est employment. One of the girls she had
met in the place introduced her to "Watch-
ful Johnny of the System." Johnny knew a
way out of such difficulties. He lent money

96 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

[to Martha to send to her mother. From that
minute he owned her.

A week later one of the women of the Res-
cue Mission found Martha in red slippers
and a red kimono in the very heart of the
"district." She was delirious with drugs
and had almost forgotten her own name.
She was taken to the Midnight Mission and
put to bed. The woman who had harbored
her was taken to task for her share in the
transaction, but she pleaded ignorance of the
girl's story.

From the Midnight Mission Martha was
taken to a Home for Girls. This is a
"home" in the real sense. It takes a girl in,
gives her aid and comfort and questions her
afterward. Little Martha, who is at heart
a good, honest girl, now has excellent em-
ployment, and the fortunes of the Cole family
are at flood tide.

In connection with this case I came very

THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 97

close to landing the particular "Watchful
Johnny" who put Martha in the "bad lands,"
but these "Johnnies" be slippery fish, the Sys-
tem's protected workers. They command
the best of legal talent and generally manage
to wriggle through holes in the net. This fel-
low found one, and got away without punish-
ment. I hope to get him yet. We are making
nets with smaller meshes.

Then there was little Lizzie McLean.
This child was sent to Chicago from Scotland
to be taken care of by an aunt whom the
parents had not known intimately for eighteen
years.

Much may happen in eighteen years. The
aunt has been for nearly ten years engaged in
questionable rooming houses. She is by no
means a delectable character. In fact, she has
a police record.

Of course Lizzie McLean's parents in
bonnie Scotland did not know that. So when

98 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

the generous and wealthy Chicago aunt of the
little Highland lassie offered to pay her way
to Chicago and find her remunerative employ-
ment— perhaps marry her to a rich man — the
old-country folk were very glad to let their
pretty daughter have her chance.

Now what happened to Lizzie when she
reached Chicago was this: She entered the
place run by her aunt and for a time was per-
mitted to absorb ideas of "American life" in
that atmosphere. Her aunt assured her that
the patrons of the place, who made so merry
and appeared to have so much fun, were "lead-
ing society men and women."

At last one of the "leading society men" be-
came enamored of Lizzie, who was just en-
tering her serenteenth year. He took her
about a great deal, and Lizzie's aunt furnished
her with fashionable clothes so that she might
cut a dash in the quasi-fashionable world.

One night a girl jumped out of a second

THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 99

story window of a cheap hotel and was picked
up unconscious. The hospital authorities
said she might die. An investigation revealed
that the girl had been taken to the hotel by
a man, but the man's identity was lost. He
had disappeared.

Subsequently Lizzie told me what had hap-
pened. The "leading society man" had taken
her to the hotel on the pretext that he was to
meet her aunt there, and they were all to dine
together. The man lied. What followed
caused Lizzie to jump out of the window.

Lizzie's aunt is now a fugitive from justice
and Lizzie is employed in a satisfactory way.
She is under the protection of women who will
see that she does not again fall into the hands
of our familiar friend "Watchful Johnny"
who ofttimes masquerades as a "leading so-
ciety man."

Now harken to the story of Sarah Roe.
Fourteen years old, Sarah was, when she

ioo MY BATTLES WITH VICE

walked into the Polk Street station with the
vague idea that she could find relatives in
Lake View. Probably the old mother of
Sarah, who sent her West because she was
unable to support her, supposed Lake View
was a place where it was easy to find out from
the neighbors where anybody lived.

When I became acquainted with Sarah it
was in a saloon rear room. She was with two
other women, and her innocent young face
attracted my attention. I sat down at the
table where Sarah was. She was very green.
The other women told me she had knocked at
their door a few nights before and asked for
shelter. The companions of the girl belong
to that class of "married" women that fre-
quent back rooms of saloons.

Fifteen minutes' talk with Sarah convinced
me that she was with dangerous company.
She had been told by the women with whom
I found her that the easiest way for her would

THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 101

be to "pick up a friend." I took Sarah with
me against the protests of these harridans who
said that they had done "everything for her."
Sarah is now a cashier in a downtown restau-
rant, employed by a kind-hearted man, who
pays her well and tells me that she is thor-
oughly competent. Also she is under the pro-
tection of an organization that will protect
her in the future. It was only good fortune
that Sarah escaped the hawk eyes and talons
of "Watchful Johnny of the System."

This sounds like repetition, doesn't it?
Well, the troubles of the girl adrift are sin-
gularly alike. They have a familiar ring when
one hears them from trembling lips twenty or
thirty times a week. The reason I am telling
of these girls one after another in this way is

that I want to hammer home the truth about

•

the problem that confronts us.

So I'm going right on with my story.

Four girls came to Chicago from a little

102 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

town one evening and went direct to a house
in Armour Avenue, the address of which had
been given them by a man who had visited
their town the night before. He became
too friendly with one of the girls, Carrol
Brown, aged eighteen. Carrol was so fas-
cinated with the tales this man told her of
gayety at the Armour Avenue place that she
persuaded three other young girls to join her
in an expedition. It was a runaway. You
see, this man did not violate the Mann Act.
He merely told stories of Chicago fairyland
likely to appeal to the fancy of a country-town
girl.

The woman in charge of this place took the
girls in, but after talking to them she became
convinced that they were novices.

Now, one novice might be handled without
too much trouble, but four novices spell
"danger" in large capital letters. The woman
became alarmed, and, being wise in her gen-

THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 103

eration, she notified the Rescue Home people.
Two of the women from the mission arrived
and took these girls away. The woman who
called up made much of her determination
"never to be instrumental in the fall of an
innocent girl."

What she feared was the consequences.
One of the girls — the Brown girl — is nat-
urally bad. She has been put in five different
employments since her release from the Ar-
mour Avenue place. She is subnormal, and
it may be difficult to save her. The real place
for her is a hospital, because her ailment is
largely mental. The others were very glad
to be taken care of. One of them is the wife
of a respectable mechanic, two are employees
of a downtown firm that finds them competent,
and the other is the protegee as ladies' maid of
one of the best known women in the city. She
is a gifted child, with no real vice about her.
Once again "Watchful Johnny" was foiled.

104 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

One afternoon I was walking in Clark
Street when I met a girl who did not seem to
be more than fourteen. She was pretty, her
pert little nose was held high, and the cheap
clothes clung to her with a certain chic that
distinguished her.

I stopped to speak. She was uppish at first
and then interested. I asked her where she
was working, and she told me she had been
discharged from a department store because of
inexperience. She had met a "fellow" who
was going to marry her. She became con-
fidential and told me that she was really
living with the man over in North Dearborn
Street, but it was only to be for a couple of
weeks; the reason was that if his folks knew
he was married in advance of certain legal
procedure he would lose several thousand
dollars.

The story sounded rather familiar. I
wanted to see the man. She was delighted at

THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 105

having found a friend who was not shocked
at her story, and agreed to take me with her
to meet "Tom," who was to be in the rear room
of a Clark Street saloon at 2 P. M. When I
entered that room with the girl her putative
future husband nearly tore off the spring doors
getting through them to the street.

The man was "Watchful Johnny" in one of
his disguises.

Katie lived in a little town clown state where
she was one of the belles. I corresponded
with her mother, who turned out to be a per-
fectly incompetent sort of person. There are
too many such incompetent parents.

The Home for Girls took care of Katie.
Nobody knew what happened except myself
and the superintendent of the Home. Katie
was there four weeks, and she proved herself
a bright little housekeeper. Now she is tak-
ing care of the summer home of excellent
people at Lake Carver. They know all about

106 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

her, but she doesn't know it, and they are too
clever to let her suspect that they do. The
girl is giving satisfaction, and the woman who
took her is going to give her an expensive
course of instruction in domestic science. She
says Katie is worth it.

So, you see, all girls adrift are not entirely
lost. Some of them are saved. I wish the
proportion were greater. I am going to tell
in the concluding chapters of this story how
more girls may be saved. Still no word as to
Mary Holden's whereabouts. Lil has prom-
ised to aid me in the search.

CHAPTER X

THE BEXELWAUM BALL

LlL wanted me to go to the Bexelwaum ball.
It was more or less a special occasion, she told
me, and a good many of the girls I had met
downtown in my capacity as a working clerk
were to be there.

My friend would not let me costume myself.
She insisted on "fixing" me for the dance.
When she had "fixed" me I looked so awful
that I might easily have been arrested on sus-
picion. Hair of a half dozen shades was
piled on my head ; I was decked out with cheap
jewelry and ribbons until I looked like a
Christmas tree.

The hour was ten when we arrived at the
hall. We bought tickets and made our

way to the floor. It is really a beautiful ball-

107

io8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

room, splendidly lighted and decorated. It
is no wonder that girls go there who have no
means of knowing just how bad the place
really is.

The orchestra played some seductive synco-
pated thing and the couples already on the
floor were dancing it to all sorts of steps. A
man they told me was Tango Tim was doing
a grotesque and suggestive dance all by him-
self in the center of the floor. I was told that
he received pay as a professional entertainer.
He ought to get seven years without the option
of a fine.

This was a "costume" dance. Some of the
girls had their gowns far above their knees
and cut so low at the top that very little was
left to the imagination. I think most of these
girls were between sixteen and eighteen years,
though there was the class of old habitues,
perhaps anywhere from twenty- five to thirty
years old.

THE BEXELWAUM BALL 109

The crowd kept increasing until the cafe
with its innumerable tables for drinks and the
main floor were both packed. The characters
included cowboys, soldiers, sailors, comedy
Irish, French, Italian and Russian. There
were soubrettes, ballet dancers, waitresses,
nursemaids, Salvation army sisters, "baby
dolls," and circus riders. Nearly all the girls
had apparently striven for the most startling
display of shoulders, arms and legs. There
never was a musical comedy staged that could
have equaled this display of briefly adorned
femininity.

And there was no denying the fascination
of this place. It is a blaze of light. Much
to gratify the senses is offered at Bexelwaum's.

Professor Tango Tim alternated with a
soubrette young person of extraordinary grace
and sinuousness, who did the "Siamese Slip"
all by herself and so popularized the move-
ment that scores of girls all over the floor were

:iio MY BATTLES WITH VICE

trying it within a few minutes. The Siamese
thing calls for all sorts of back-bending, twist-
ings and contortions of the upper body.

The girls with the very ill-fitting and very
low-necked gowns could not even attempt these
movements without over-emphasizing the low-
ness of their gowns or revealing the shortness
of them.

The young woman dancing professionally
had some sort of fluffy lingerie that protected
her in the daring kicks and twists she exe-
cuted, but the amateurs had the advantage of
no such equipment. I never witnessed so
amazing an exhibition as developed out of the
general desire to Siamese.

Very soon the proximity of the cafe tables
and the liberal supplies of intoxicants pro-
duced their inevitable result.

One of the first to become palpably intoxi-
cated was a young woman dressed as an In-
dian squaw with a real baby strapped to her

THE BEXELWAUM BALL in

back. The girl's face was stained a dull red
and the poor baby was dyed a like color. The
little thing was asleep when my attention was
attracted by the loud talk of the "squaw"
mother. A girl who told me she was the
"squaw's" sister berated the latter for pinching
the infant to wake it up so that it would cry
and attract attention to her makeup.

Afterward I saw her punch the child my-
self, and the child cried. I spoke to her, and
she laughed as she admitted that she wanted
the child to cry. She thought if the baby
cried she would get first prize for originality
in her characterization. She was carrying the
baby on her back, Indian fashion. Its poor
little weazened face lolled over her shoulder
and its eyes closed in utter exhaustion, despite
her brutality.

I had no lack of partners. Lil saw to that,
and, anyway, there were no formalities.
Young men asked me to dance and I did.

ii2 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

The couples who were drinking — and I think
most all of them were — became more and more
daring as the time passed. The most simple
dance can be made suggestive by drunken men
and women.

I must have danced with six or seven part-
ners in the first two hours of the affair. Every
single one of them asked me, as though it were
part of the evening's entertainment, whether
they could "come up to the flat." The aston-
ishing part of it was that hardly one of them
was out of his teens. The way these boys
talked to me was enlightening.

For instance : I danced with a lad not over
twenty. We had done a few turns around the
hall in a two-step. I could not do the things
he did with the dance. He had all sorts of
variations of the step.

"You want to come in with the flop," he told
me.

THE BEXELWAUM BALL 113

"What's the flop?" I inquired.

"Well," he enlightened me, "when I lean
back this way you want to tumble forward this
way."

He illustrated how the thing ought to be
done from his point of view. I blushed. It
was an atrocious suggestion. I pretended that
I couldn't understand him and refused to do
what he wanted.

"Why," he said, "all these old time dances
are on the blink. Nobody dances 'em, and
nobody wants 'em. You've got to get some
action into a dance nowadays or you can't put
it across."

"What do you think the dance really ought
to be?" I asked him. He was a very young
fellow and it appeared to me he might be
decent if he had the chance.

"Well," he answered, reflectively, "I figure
that dancing and hunting with a gun are just

ii4 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

about the same. If the guys that come here
to this place had any show, they'd rather go
rabbit hunting, maybe."

"Well, is this a hunt instead of dance?" I
begged.

"Sure it is," he responded, readily enough,
and laughing at my ignorance. "All this stuff
is phony. The guys don't give a care about
dancing. They know that the girls like to
dance, and they know the girls will be here in
flocks. So if a fellow wants to cop off a girl,
here's where he comes."%

"But don't girls come here who can't be
'copped off,' as you call it?" I suggested.

"Oh, once in a while there's a kid that's
straight and just happens to float in," he an-
swered, "but, you see, they all get wise to it
pretty soon. They don't want any girl to
come to these doin's unless she's playing the
game all the way down the line. Most of
'em are gold diggers, at that."

THE BEXELWAUM BALL 115

"What's a gold digger?" I queried.

"Say," answered my young friend, "maybe
you come from the hills around Gary, but I
'don't know any of that bunch that talks the
way you do. A gold digger is a miner."

"Yes," I agreed, "but how does being a
'miner' and a 'gold digger' apply to that little
girl over there, for instance?"

"That kid with the red hat?" he inquired,
pointing. "Why, she's the queen. That's
Chrissy Tate. Why, Kid, she's got cards and
spades on 'em all. She can get money from a
'Gypshun' mummy, believe me."

"But she looks like just a little girl," I told
him. The boy had such nice eyes I thought
there might be an undercurrent of decency
about him.

"Kid," he said, with his worldly-wise look,
"Chrissy's been travelin' this route for four
years, and she knows more about what's going
on along the trail than any of them. First she

n6 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

used to be 'Steve's' girl, and she beat him up
with one of his own bottles. He got scared of
her, and since that she's traveled under eight
different names. There's a funny thing about
that Chrissy. Do you know what she does?
When anybody is on to her she gets out a lot
of old dolls she's got in a trunk and plays with
'em. Steve told me he came home one night
and found her sittin' in the middle of the
parlor floor playin' with a regular layout of
dolls.

" 'You're sure crazy,' says Steve, 'put them
things in the ash can.' "

"And he says Chrissy gathered all them fool
dolls up in a bunch in her arms and sat up and
cried all night. Now what the hell do you
think of that?"

CHAPTER XI

HER RETROSPECTION

THE head floor-manager, distinguished by a
dignified manner, a pair of narrow dark eyes
that suggested villainy, a new fifteen dollar
suit and a checked tie, signaled for the next
dance, and my young, too sophisticated part-
ner darted away. The orchestra, hidden be-
hind a table piled high with empty beer bot-
tles, struck up a noisy tune with much em-
phasis on the brass instruments. The dance
was on in full swing.

For all the intent hilarity of the crowd, to
me the scene was intensely pathetic. A large
percentage of the crowd were tipsy. The
scene was perfectly disreputable. There was
nobody there who tried to make it respectable,

117

ii8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

and had there been, that person probably
would not have dared.

A much intoxicated man walked over to a
girl standing near me.

"Do you Tango?" he asked.

Boldly he offered her his arm, and the two
shuffled off. Like many of the others they
were too weary to dance much, and before
long I noticed they stopped their gyrations
and sat down at a table to partake of the amber
fluid.

The majority of the dancers were fast be-
coming awkward, and some lost step alto-
gether. Couples bumped one another, leav-
ing trails of human hate in their wake.

A woman with a hard, painted face came
over to me and asked me where I was staying.
I told her I had a good deal of trouble finding
a "right" place to stay.

"Why, say," she said, "you ought to be get-

HER RETROSPECTION 119

ting the kale while you're young. Don't let
none of those flim-flammin' youths get hold of
you. Cut out the love stuff, see? Get a guy
that's got one foot in Graceland and one in

. There's millions of them in Chicago,

and they're your meat."

"Yes," I volunteered.

"If a girl can't get what she wants one way,
she's got to get it another."

"What really does a girl want?" I sug-
gested.

If I live to be a hundred years old I shall
never forget the strange look that came into
that creature's face.

"What does a girl want?" she croaked.
"Why, what she wants is what she can't get."

"What do you mean by that?" I inquired.

"Why," she retorted, "men want women
just to amuse them. I was married once —
not long ago, either — only five years."

120 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I looked at the hard, painted face. It was
cruel, but she must have understood, for she
laughed in my face.

"Say," she went on, "I've got a baby some-
where. He made me let one of them homes
adopt it. Now I can't find out where the
child is. God! Do you suppose I care any-
thing about floating around with this bunch?
We had over a thousand dollars, and then he
went to work for a brewery. Then the brew-
ery put him to work collecting in the 'dis-
trict.' After he got in there he used to come
home 'pickled' every night. Then he got to
staying out. That time I was expecting the
baby. I had to have attention in a hospital,
and they told me I couldn't look after a baby
for a long time, and I'd have to get somebody
to care for it You know, a woman doesn't
know much about her baby before she gets it
Afterward is when she wants it

"So I let them persuade me that my baby

HER RETROSPECTION 121

would be too much for me, and they sent it to
a 'home.' My little kid— God! I hain't
ever set eyes on her. They took her away be-
fore I ever knew she was on earth.

"So, here's me, see? I'm not much good
now. I'm pretty bad. I make men pay me
now, see? I hate men and I hate women. I
hate all the crazy kids that storm around this
place. I'm married all right, but what's the
use of a man like that? Why, he's worse than
no man at all."

It was this woman who introduced me to
Chrissy, the pretty girl with the child face.
I talked to her for a long time. We danced
in the same set later in the evening. Since
that Chrissy and I have been very friendly.
She lets me go to see her. She has promised
that she would try to break away from the halls
and get a new start. I don't know whether
she will keep her promise, but I hope so.

Lil had been so busy with the men that she

122 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

almost forgot me. Just as I was leaving she
asked if I had had a good time.

"I was interested," I replied.

"Going home alone?" she demanded.

"I guess that is the best way to go — from
here," I smiled.

"Aw, Kid, don't hurry," she urged. "The
fun is just beginning."

I told her I was tired and must get some
sleep.

"Please be careful, and I hope you find
the missing Kid," she said, as I left the
hall.

When I returned home I asked my mother
if she had received any word from Mary,
pretty Mary Holden. I could see by the ex-
pression on her face that she believed my task
a hopeless one. At any rate I told her I was
learning a great deal about the big city and its
traps for girls adrift.

CHAPTER XII

QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS

HUMAN nature becomes the more puzzling as
its deeper soundings are explored. Down in
the depths there are some very queer fish-
fish with only a few of the sensibilities of sur-
face species ; invertebrates in the majority, pur-
blind drifters with the shifting tides.

Over on the north side is a policeman who
has made a great deal of money out of his con-
nection with the vice traffic. He got only the
droppings from overloaded bags that went to
the men higher up, but even these were suffi-
cient to buy a house and some very respectable
interest-bearing securities. Chicago's girls
adrift paid for the house and the securities, of

course, but what I am trying to point out is

123

124 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

the contradictoriness of the grafter's char-
acter.

For this policeman is a regular attendant at
church ; he has a family of well kept children ;
his wife swears by him; his superiors insist
that he is a valuable officer.

Now, here is another contradiction: One
night last winter — a very cold night, too — I
witnessed a transaction at the corner of Con-
gress Street and Wabash Avenue that made me
ponder. A poor shivering little girl stepped
from a doorway and accosted a man who had
just emerged from a taxi-cab. The man I had
seen before. The girl I did not know. She
seemed to be about seventeen.

I saw the man's hand go into his pocket, and
then it was extended toward the suppliant, as
he passed quickly into a nearby building.
The girl stood staring at a $5 bill the man
had given her.

It was then that I approached the girl and

QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 125

asked her if I could help her. I carried some
cards in my pocket book which called for the
admission of friendless children such as this
one seemed to be to a shelter that feeds them
without demanding histories of their lives in
advance. Sometimes they use the cards, but
not often. This girl laughed shrilly as I
spoke to her and showed me the $5 bill.

"What do you know about that?" she de-
clared; "an' I never saw him before in my
life."

The man I had recognized in the act of
doing an apparently generous act was "Ike,
the Kike," notorious around the world as a
trafficker in women. I told the girl who her
casual benefactor was, and she cursed me ex-
pertly for my interference.

"Suppose he is just what you say," she said.
"D'you think I could walk up to one of your
God-A'mighty crowd if I was broke like I
am to-night and touch 'em for a five? Not

126 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

on your family Bible, Kid. I'd get a ticket
rfor soup, more likely. That guy? Why,
say, he's got a heart in him."

Now, I don't know what induced "Ike, the
Kike" to give away part of his slimy earn-
ings— whether it was a spasm of pity, a be-
lated twinge of an atrophied conscience, a
touch of swagger — perhaps the recklessness of
inebriety, but when I saw the girl entering a
corner cafe, intent, as she said, on "big eats,"
I fell once more into reflection upon the
strange contradictions one encounters in an
underworld character.

Take another case, that of a young woman
I know who went as straight as an arrow from
a Chicago high school to a place of evil fame
known from Paris to Vladivostok. This girl
told me her views in a dispassionate way. She
was gentle with me and behaved throughout
as though I were a silly, argumentative child
in need of correction.

QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 127

Of course, I was trying to get the girl out
of the place; my visit was on behalf of an or-
ganization devoted to such rescue work.

"Why do you sociologists bother with peo-
ple like me?" she demanded. "Why don't
you begin your work in the public schools —
yes, and in the private schools too — and build
for the future by teaching boys and girls to be
decent human beings at ages when they can be
taught, when they are not already depraved?"

A sudden sharp twinge ran through my
being. What if I should find Mary Holden
and hear her speak like my high school friend?
The horror of it caused me to shudder.

I admitted that we ought to do more sym-
pathetic work in the schools and churches
and homes, but emphasized my immediate
case, which was her own. I wanted her to
leave with me.

"No, I'm not going to leave here," the girl
declared stubbornly. "I can tell myself the

ia8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

truth about myself here — which is something.
I never allowed myself to consider the truth
about my own character until I was frankly
and avowedly lost. Then I took an inventory
and found I wasn't a bit worse than I had been
for years."

"You aren't alone in the world, you know,"
I urged. "It isn't too late for you to try
again."

"That sounds all right, but it isn't true,"
was the response. "I tell you it is no use try-
ing to rescue girls who have joined the army
—most of them don't want to be rescued.
They dread the horrors of the climb back and
had rather die than try.

"I was a bad girl, as you call it, when I was
fourteen, and they said I was the brightest
girl in my grade. I believe I was, too.
Study came easily for me, but so did wicked-
ness. I was as wicked as I was clever.

"My father was a traveling lecturer, and

QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 129

my mother traveled with him. I lived with
my aunt, who was prominent in four or five
women's clubs. The school I attended was as
bad, morally speaking, as this place is, and
worse.

"I'll tell you another thing. For one girl
who gets found out and has to hustle out of the
way of the hypocrites who don't get found out,
there are twenty just as bad as she is who
marry and graduate into the ranks of the 're-
spectable.'

"There is eternal shouting and exhorting
against the immorality and vice of the levee,
but I wonder if it isn't society's hue and cry
to divert attention from viciousness in what
you call 'the best circles,' a condition that is a
hundred times more important."

By this time the room in which we were
conversing held an interested audience of
painted, bright-eyed women. They ap-
plauded the girl who was speaking.

130 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Why are you forever twisting the tail of
the dog?" she asked. "It is the other end that
bites."

Everybody laughed.

"That is false philosophy," I declared.
"You are eighteen, with the world before you
if you will only give yourself a chance."

"Wrong again," she laughed. "Most of it
is behind me. When a girl knows what I
know she is a fool to lie to herself. I'm look-
ing the facts in the face. If I Ve got to go to
hell I'm going with my eyes open."

That girl is still a denizen in the depths,
and the worst of it is she doesn't want to get
out. The surface sunlight hurts her myopic
blue eyes. There is hardly a more dangerous
character, potentially speaking, in the levee
district.

But what about the family and school neg-
lect that have developed such a character?
Is it not true, as this girl says, that the remedy

QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 131

for such evil as this is to be applied in the
school room?

Doesn't the situation call for general teach-
ing of sex hygiene as one of the most important
elements in the education of the child?

Is it not true that without determined con-
centration on the moral improvement of the
rising generation through cooperation of
schools and churches we are wrestling ineffec-
tively with vice — trying to make the tail wag
the dog?

Sometimes when I consider the task I have
set myself in telling the conditions I have en-
countered in my investigations in and around
Chicago my heart almost fails me and my
spirit revolts. Will it do any good? I ask
myself.

Will the men and women who are fathers
and mothers be helped to realize that the child
must be trained to moral standards in the
home?

i32 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

Will the churches in some measure be con-
vinced that they must organize for a com-
bined effort to save children of to-day — that
souls are more important than sectarianism,
and that Sunday is not the only day in the
week?

This story is not a romance — it is a tragedy
of truth.

To resume : Let us see how far the law is
effective in preventing operations of the Sys-
tem's recruiting agents in this search for girls
to carry on the traffic that is constantly in
progress.

Some time ago I determined to pose as a
vice agent myself, and a very brief experience
was sufficient to convince me of the ease with
which the ranks are kept filled up.

I began by visiting an employment agency
engaged in furnishing female help. The
woman in charge was suspicious and reserved
at first. I told her I wanted "half a dozen

QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 133

girls for out of town," and that they had to
be good looking. She grinned at me and
asked what sort of work I wanted them for.

"Oh, kind of general," I said.

"About how old girls?" she inquired.

"Well, young enough to be lively," I re-
plied, laughing.

"Now just what is the employment?" she
insisted. "You may confide in me, you know."

"The fact is," I whispered, "I want them
for entertainers — it's a high class house in a
small city, about a hundred miles from here."

"It is against the law for us to furnish girls
that way," the woman objected. "The penal-
ties are severe and we have to be careful."

"I don't see how you'd be running much
risk," I put in, "but of course I don't want any
kickers."

"I think I can get what you want," said the
wily agent, finally. "When do you want
them?"

134 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

The woman named her price, which was
heavy. It was arranged that I should call
next morning at ten. I never went back.

Now, just consider that experience. I
know nothing of the ways of professionals in
securing girls for the white slave trade, but
despite my utter ignorance I was able in a
comparatively brief time to close a contract
for six girls to be sold into the bondage of
shame.

Nor is it any sufficient answer that they were
to be women already employed in the traffic.
On the contrary, this woman told me the girls
would be signed up for hotel work.

"That's what we send them out as," she said,
"and what they do when they get there is none
of our business."

Nor was this my last experience in posing
as an agent of the vice trust. What happened
when I opened negotiations with another
agency I'll tell later on.

CHAPTER XIII

TREFALKA AND STEVE

I MUST tell the story of Tref alka Gralak, who
is dead now. When I first knew her, two
years ago, she was a dear, soft-hearted little
thing with a pretty face and figure. She
loved a man named Steve Bleczak.

They had been sweethearts, these two, ever
since the old days in the school, and they were
graduated together from the school house into
the factory.

When big, muscular Steve used to show
up in the work room Trefalka's blue eyes
shone and her cheeks flushed. Then she used
to shake the heavy dark curls down round her
face to hide her confusion. Oh, yes, Tref alka
was very much in love with Steve.

135

136 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

One night after her work was over Tref alka
ran into my house.

"What do you think I got?" she gasped out.

"Tell me," I smiled.

"Look!" laughed Tref alka.

The child extended her hand for my in-
spection, and upon it was a ring set with the
tiniest diamond I ever saw. Trefalka's eyes
were sparkling and she breathed rapidly in
her excitement.

"Ain't it class?" babbled the child. "Oh,
ain't it a Jim Dandy — no, ain't it a Joe Hun?"
she went on. "Dear, me an' Steve's going to
be married. His pa's goin' to give us a lot,
an' he's goin' to get the buildin' loan to lend
us the money so that we can build a house. It
is all planned."

I never saw any girl so happy as Trefalka.
She cried one minute and laughed the next,
and she made me promise that I would be
there when she was married, because I had

TREFALKA AND STEVE 137

always been her best friend. How I wish I
could have sustained my title to that office !

"Trefalka, dear," I interposed, "what about
your wedding dress? It will be something
white, of course, and you will carry flowers
and have a dance afterward?"

The girl's face fell.

"Pa's drunk again," she whispered. "There
ain't a cent in the bank. My money from the
factory goes for food. Pa always makes me
give him all my money."

"You must tell him you are to be married,"
I urged, "and perhaps he will let you save for
some wedding things."

"No," she said, sadly, "I have to give it to
him, or we all get beat up. Anyway, all the
girls does it that stays home. I don't care
about giving them the money if I could just
get the wedding too. (The dress, you know,
will take $15, and the other things $10. I
think I could get everything for $30 — the

138 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

things to eat and drink, and everything like
that."

I made up my mind that Trefalka should
have what she wanted to be married in, poor
child, but the date slipped my memory, and I

shall never cease to regret it

• ••••••

"Steve quit his job in the factory," said Tre-
falka. "He says it wasn't very genteel.
Steve is awful proud."

"What is he doing now?" I asked.

"In one of them skating rinks places at
South Chicago," she answered. "Say, the
girls are swell — big willow plumes and such
skirts and waists — all silk. He likes that,
Steve does. And I haven't got nothing. I
shame myself with Steve."

Then the storm broke. Trefalka buried
her curly head in my lap and cried her heart
out. The little body shook with great heavy
sobs. It was long before I could calm her.

TREFALKA AND STEVE 139

"Don't you worry about Steve," I said. "If
he can be won away from you by a sleazy silk
skirt, you don't want him anyhow."

"But I do," she raged. "By G— , you
women in America ain't got no hearts for
men," she stormed. "I want Steve!"

And who could blame the child for wanting
to look her best before the man she loved?
Wasn't it human— wasn't it the best of the
woman in her?

Poor Trefalka! Her crying ceased. She
wiped her eyes, grasped my hand tightly and
went away to her home. Poor little girl —
such a home!

You can't wonder at anything that happens
when a girl with a hungry heart must betake
herself to filthy quarters filled with crying
babies, a drunken father and a quarrelsome
mother. Rather a hard place to turn to in
an extremity!

Two weeks later there was a knock at the

140 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

door. I threw it open, and there, under the
flickering porch light, stood Trefalka.

"Trefalka," I cried. "Oh, Trefalka."

The little body, swathed in a cheap satin
gown, swayed forward. I put my arm around
the girl and led her in. She was painted and
her eyebrows were grotesquely penciled.

"I guess you know," she began just about a
whisper.

"Why did you?" I interposed.

"Well," she shivered, "it's down to what
they call Joe Howard's joint. It was Kitty
out to the factory who took me down. She
keeps company with Dan, the bar fly."

"But you know better than to go there," I
answered sternly. "You knew what sort of
place it was."

"Well, I didn't know it was so crazy as
that," the girl went on. "That barkeep is the
hoarse guy that swiped Kitty's lockets — you
know, him that was pinched for bringin' girls

(TREFALKA AND STEVE 141
rom Indiana to a fake weddin'. I told Kitty
about Steve and says I couldn't get married
because I didn't have no weddin' dress, and
Kitty says: 'Falka, why don't you come to
Howard's with me, because you can make
enough in a week to get the dress and things.
You can work down there until 12 at night,
and then get back to your shack.'

"So I asked her what I could make steady,
and she says it could be $8 a night and $15
on Saturdays. She tells me it is grand — all
lace curtains and a nickel planner and all the
things you want to drink. 'If you don't be-
lieve me,' says Kitty, 'come and see for your-
self.'"

•The girl paused. I asked her to tell me all.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SCARLET WEDDING DRESS

"WELL," continued Trefalka, "that night I
went home early from work and got supper
for the kids. Pa was awful mean to me. I
asked him if he could do something for my

weddin' and he says 'to with weddin's.

Take the vinegar jug and chase me some
booze/ and that's all he says to me.

"Then Ma says to Pa not to get no more
booze, and Pa says to her to shut up, because
he's going to do the talking around the place,
and Ma says something to him, so he tries to
hit Ma with a chair, and Ma ducked and the
chair hit the door and come back on Pa's head.
Then Ma cried an' was on her knees on the
floor.

SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 143

" Talka,' she says, 'your pa has gone and
died on us.'

"I took a look at Pa and he was all bloody,
but I didn't care, anyway. 'He won't die for
a long time, anyhow,' I told Ma, and then I
ran out and met Kitty. I was cryin' and Kitty
says, 'what the h — is the use of bawling?
Come on down to Joe's.'

"So that's how I come to go."

I took Trefalka in my room and washed the
paint off her face. That process revealed a
very pale and drawn-looking child. Kittie
had tried to bleach her hair with peroxide,
but I was glad that the solution had been too
weak. Tref alka's hair was still unspoiled.

"I got the money for the dress," whispered
the girl shivering, "but I'd rather work in the
factory for $2 a week. That Howard joint is
some fierce place. They got a cash register just
like in a wine room, and what you go to do is to
get the fellows tanked so they'll spend all the

,144 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

money they got on 'em. They rings it all up
on the register and the girls get a percentage
on the checks. Some o' the girls thinks it's
fun, but it ain't. I know Carrie that works
in the factory. She works down there, too.
Her husband lets her work at night, and he
calls for her at 12. If she ain't got a good deal
of money he beats her up, because he thinks
she's givin' some of her money to a guy or
something like that.

"Phil, that looks after rooms, he says to us
girls in there: 'Get the rolls; don't forget
it is pay night.'

"Say, when a guy's drunk and doped you
Hassen't leave a nickel in his pockets. If you
Ho, they're down on you."

"Trefalka," I said. "How can you marry
Steve now?"

"Steve knows," she snapped ; "to with

him. He wouldn't believe me why I did it.
[To-night he found me out."

SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 145

There was an awful look in the child's face
as she told me this. She seemed to have just
found out how she had been cheated. I saw
that her eyes were swollen and heavy with
much weeping.

"I don't care," she went on, and then the
next instant wailed: "Oh, my God! Miss,
yes, I do care. I love Steve and I want him.
But Steve knows now, and he's quit. I was
sittin' in the back room there with four girls
an' there was some fellows buying beer.
Helen that used to work in the factory was
there, an' I noticed her sniffin' flakes. Then
two more fellows came in, and they looked in
our room. I stood up with my hands and feet
froze and shiverin' all over.

"'Steve!' I says. Wait, Steve. I'll tell
you all about it.'

" 'You,' Steve says, an'd then he laughed.

'You ' Steve says to me, and I tried

to get hold of him to make him talk to me, but

146 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

it wasn't no good. He hit me right here, an'
I fell down."

Trefalka pushed down the shoulder of her
near-silk waist and showed me a livid bruise
on her white flesh.

"I come to quick, but when I did Steve was
gone, and he won't never come back — he won't
never come back," moaned the little girl. She
was rocking backward and forward in an
agony of distress.

"Trefalka," I said, "you must find Steve and
let me talk to him. I believe I can make him
take care of you. He did love you, didn't
he?"

"Oh," moaned Trefalka, "I know he won't
come back. I just begged him. 'Steve,' I
said, 'Steve, for God's sake don't throw me
down, Steve.' When he took his ring ofFn
me I just hung to him and told him I'd work
all my life, if Ke'd just let me show him I was
white and not to take the ring, but he wouldn't

SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 147

have no truck with me — he just wouldn't have
no truck with me.

"And I just did it to get a weddin' dress so
I wouldn't shame him — he was so proud."

If any of the women I know who are stern
judges of other people's morals could have
sat with me and watched that helpless lost
sister, her hands stretched out empty toward
me, tears streaming down her face, I am sure
they would have wept too.

"Trefalka, to-morrow we'll go and find
Steve," I said. "I'll help you."

"Please," she assented. "I'll come to-
morrow." And she was gone.

The door closed after her, but I looked out
quickly. She was not going in the direction
of her home. In an instant I had a cape
thrown over my shoulders and was following
her. I knew where she was going now.
Steve was in South Chicago. She was going
there. Trefalka sat in the front part of the

148 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

street car with her head bowed down. She
did not see me. At last we reached the skating
rink.

As I reached the corner I waited an instant.
The skaters were pouring out of the door.
The calliope that had been screeching out a
discordant refrain was still. The last couple
turned past the corner. I could see Steve's
big frame outlined against the flapping shade
as he reached to put out the lights one after
another.

I stepped forward to plead with him that
he forgive her the sin of which he himself was
guilty — to tell him that Tref alka didn't under-
stand, and that it was really for him. That
instant Tref alka darted past me, breathless, her
eyes glittering fiercely. She was past the door
and by his side just as he reached for the last
light.

"Steve," she cried, tensely — "Steve, dear —

SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 149

are you goin' to do what you said? Are you
goin' to throw me down?" she cried.

"Didn't I tell you to git out, you ?

Do you think any fellow wants to marry your
kind?" His face hardened and an ugly scowl
lay upon it.

"Steve, don't you see, it was the weddin'
dress, the money? Them girls did it, Kitty
and Helen — they say it's all right." She fell
on her knees before him. Her arms embraced
him.

"Let me alone," he said. "I'm done." He
shoved her off roughly.

Trefalka sprang to her feet. There was a
gleam in the air, a cry of pain. Steve's bulky
frame sank to the floor.

Before I could cry out Trefalka had thrown
herself full length upon his body. Her mouth
found his. Then the knife was in her heart
too.

150 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I cried for help. An officer made his way
through the gathering crowd. The lights
flared up. There they lay, Steve and Tre-
f alka — dying. His arm had found her waist
and held her close.

CHAPTER XV

ANNIE'S HUSBAND

Now, Hear reader, you are liable to exclaim
with annoyance that this is not a story, but a
series of stories. To this I wish to reply that
this is a story — my own story of my own ex-
periences in the by-ways of the underworld.

Here is the case of Annie Cracrow. I had
been requested to find out at first hand what
became of 3,500 fatherless babies born in Chi-
cago every year. Annie Cracrow afforded at
least one illustration.

I worked with Annie in a sweatshop, a
tailoring plant on the west side. Side by side
we sewed on seams and tapes, finishing gar-
ment after garment. It was a monotonous and
soul-stifling employment — always the same

151

152 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

thing. There was no variety at all, no in-
dividuality possible in the work, no avenue for
inspiration. It was so much the garment, so
much to be done — day's beginning to day's
end.

One night — a dull rainy night — we streamed
out of the factory with a thousand or more
girls working just as we were. Most of the
workers were big, angular, foreign-born girls,
who had been mal-adjusted to the confinement
and dust of shops.

The continual bending over garments by
clay, the same work at home during most even-
ings, had begun to tell on many once strong
constitutions. Some had deep hollows under
their cheek-bones ; others coughed continually
and complained of pains in the chest and back.

Annie Cracrow's face was flushed as we left
the workroom. She had the cough, too. I
had taken her to a doctor, who said she ought
to be sent to a dry climate. Poor girl — she

ANNIE'S HUSBAND 153

hadn't the money to go anywhere. Besides,
there were other considerations.

We were headed for the Polish settlement
after work. Annie had to stop in a doorway
because she was overcome with a paroxysm of
coughing. Two girls from the factory joined
us and we walked on together.

"The band was out yesterday — did you hear
it?" asked one of the girls.

"Sure I did," smiled Annie — "yer pa was
in it, carrying the statue of Joseph. I seen
him too."

"It was a pretty good parade," went on the
other girl, "but my ma says they used to have
better ones in the old country and the streets
wasn't so dirty."

"How's your brother Stan, Annie?" in-
quired one of the girls. "Is he still doin' time
down to the Bridewell prison?"

"Yes," nodded Annie, "but he's goin' to be
home pretty soon, and Butch, too."

154 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"She's that crazy about Butch," confided
another girl to me in a whisper — "Why,
say, she'd lie down and let him walk over her.
Say, I wouldn't let no feller get me goin' that
way."

Annie looked around at me and smiled.

"Do you love a feller?" she asked.

I did not reply, so she went on:

"Sometimes Butch was awful mean to me,
but if I just could have him where I could
work for him— I mean in some little house—
I'd make him love me. You can't make no
man love you right unless you can fix his
breakfast," she philosophized. "Butch is
great on breakfasts, and where he boards they
ain't clean."

"Annie, when are you going to see your
brother in the Bridewell?" I asked.

"To-morrow," she said. "I wish you would

come."

"I'll go," I said, and was rewarded with the

ANNIE'S HUSBAND 155

story of Stanislaus Cracrow's arrest and con-
viction, together with a notorious rascal known
to the police as "Butch" Krapadinski. There
had been a revolver battle before the men were
captured, and Stanislaus had been wounded.
The men were about to complete their sen-
tences.

So the next morning Annie and I went to
visit them. Annie was dressed in her plain
best. Her hair was plastered down straight
on her forehead with fastidious fashion. She
wore a straw hat with a big, red rose.

The poor child was beamingly happy. She
was going to see "Butch." When the guard
let us into the cellroom she was trembling. I
have read learned disquisitions which essayed
to prove that such human creatures as Annie
Cracrow are unable to experience the finer
emotions. Some sociological pundits ought
to travel with me for a month or two.

The cell number was 123. I saw a man sit-

156 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

ting in the far corner of the dark little coop.
He came forward and stood with his hands
clutching the bars. The man was Stanis-
laus.

"Hello, Kid," he cried. "We ain't got no
more shop work in here — we're coming out to-
morrow, me and Butch."

The big, broad shouldered fellow smiled as
he patted his sister's hand. His face lighted
up and he seemed more human than when it
was in repose.

"Butch comin' out too, Stan?" asked Annie.
"Are you sure they'll let him out?"

"Sure, he's got his 'stop-work' card. Say,
Annie, Butch is still stuck on you — he tipped it
off to me on the dinner march two or three
times."

Annie's face was glorified. For all her
plainness she looked positively happy. She
was nervously twisting a bit of ribbon on the
front of her gown.

ANNIE'S HUSBAND 157

"I'm goin' down to see Butch," she said to
me. "Want to come?"

So we made our way to cell 153. There
stood "Butch." He was hideous — a thin,
yellow-skinned misfit of society. The low,
slanting brow, heavy jaw and shifting eyes
with one drooping lid told me more in a glance
than Annie could have told me in a month.

"So you're Annie's sweetheart?" I ventured.

"Sure," he leered, staring at me sullenly.

"Then you're a lucky fellow, and I hope you
know that," I told him, stepping aside to let
them converse privately. But I couldn't help
overhearing.

"Butch, dear," she said, "you're coming
home to-morrow. Will you come out to the
place with Stan?"

"Sure," was the reply. "Sure, I'm comin'
out there."

Annie was seized with a fit of coughing and
I stepped forward to help her.

158 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Listens like the con," remarked the man be-
hind the bars with utter indifference.

"It's just a bad cough," I declared. "What
she needs is a rest and a better home."

Annie recovered and resumed the conversa-
tion. What she said gave me the first insight
into her truly desperate plight.

"Butch," she gasped, "Butch, you must
come. The priest says he'll make the call.
You know it ain't goin' to be long, Butch."

"Aw, sure," was the response. "Sure, I'm
comin', Kid. I said I would, didn't I?"

The remainder of the conversation carried
on by poor Annie with the utmost frankness
and with no evident anxiety on the part of the
man, left nothing to be imagined as far as I
was concerned. After we had once more
visited the brother and were again out in the
sunshine, I begged Annie to let me help
her.

"Will he marry you?" I asked.

ANNIE'S HUSBAND 159

"If he don't Father will kill me," she re-
plied.

"What about Butch — won't he be shot, too?"

"Why, no," she said, in surprise, "they
always figure it's the girl, not the man. Pa
wouldn't do nothin' to him."

"Do you love this man?" I persisted.

"Sure," answered Annie, surprisedly. "I'm
goin' to be the mother of his child — that's why
I want him to be sure and come home. I
wouldn't tell nobody but you, only you've been
so kind to me. I'm afraid if Butch don't come
home soon everybody'll know."

The next day ended my experience in that
particular sweat shop. I was engaged in an-
other part of the State running down some
clews with the hope of getting trace of little
Mary Holden, and some time passed before
my return. Annie had promised that if
Butch did not keep his promise to her she
would let me know.

CHAPTER XVI

MARY HOLDEN!

A FEW days after I returned to Chicago I
heard a step on my porch soon after dusk.
Someone rang the bell. When I answered,
Annie's sister, Victoria, was standing there.
She was breathless.

" Please be so kind to go see Annie," she
pleaded. "Pa chased her out and he says he's
goin' to kill her, only he ain't got no gun — the
saloonkeeper's got it."

I found Annie at an address in Dearborn
Street. She was the mother of a boy baby.
The poor child-mother was in desperate
straits. Her chest was shrunken and the flesh
was drawn tightly over her bones. The girl's
eyes were still bright. She smiled at me as I

entered.

1 60

MARY HOLDEN! 161

"Why did you not send for me?" I scolded.
"You had my address all the time."

"I said I would," she began, "but Pa threw
me out. He would have shot me, only he
loaned the saloonkeeper the gun for drinks.
My baby came down by the Salvation Home."

She pulled back the dirty coverlet on her
little bed to let me see the baby's face. The
child cried and she patted it tenderly with her
thin hand.

"Where is Butch?" I demanded. "Didn't
he marry you?"

"No," she confessed, her eyes filling with
tears. "He didn't come back, but he will
some time, 'cause the baby looks just like him
and somebody's goin' to tell him."

"Doesn't he send you any money?" I per-
sisted.

"Not yet."

"Well, he is going to take care of that baby
and you too," I declared.

162 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

She was quick to defend her man.

"Maybe Butch ain't had no work," she said.

An hour later I visited the Court of Do-
mestic Relations. A warrant was issued for
Butch. He was found and brought before
the court. He tried to lie out of Annie's
charges.

"You marry her and take care of your child,
or I'll send you to the penitentiary for a life
term," I whispered.

He stared at me aghast. He rolled his eyes
and his jaw dropped.

"Why?" he gasped.

"You know," I snapped. "You know, don't
you?"

It was a random shot but it told. Butch
knew why he ought to go to the penitentiary
for life even if I did not. My threat had
stirred a horrible fear in his shriveled soul.
The rascal thought I had found out all about
him. He was a quaking picture of terror.

MARY HOLDEN! 163

"Marry her," I demanded, "now."
"Quick," he assented. "Get the priest."
So I went to poor little Annie's wedding
and saw that she had a few bits of finery to
wear. The man she married is a scoundrel
of the coarser type, but fear is keeping him
straight.

"Butch," I said after he was married, "if
ever I see a bruise on Annie — if ever I find out
that you are not good to her or the baby — if
you don't get work and keep it and support
your little family, do you know what I am
going to do?

"Well," I said quietly, "it will be fifteen
years at least — and perhaps — "

I made a suggestive motion with my hand
toward my throat. The man shuddered. I
don't know all he has done in the past, but I
do know what he is doing now. He is taking
care of Annie and the baby and he is working
steadily.

164 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

One evening after I had left Annie I was
walking up South State Street when I noticed
a familiar figure just a few paces ahead of me.
I stepped into a dark areaway and watched.
The figure turned, almost facing me. It was
Mary Holden.

I was just about to rush out and speak to
her when I saw her nod to a passing man.
The man took her arm and the couple disap-
peared into a tumble-down frame building.
The door closed behind them, and I heard the
lock click. I knocked frantically at the door,
but received no response.

CHAPTER XVII

I HUNT A JOB ON THE STAGE

I RAN to the corner where I found a kind-
faced policeman. I told him I was searching
for a girl. He promised to help me. I
pointed to the building where I had seen Mary
enter, and together we walked back to the
locked door. It took only a few minutes for
the strong shoulders of the officer to break
down the door. Together we ascended the
stairs. In the rooms I heard a scurrying of
feet. At the top of the staircase a florid-faced
man approached us.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"We are looking for a girl, and we intend
to search the place," retorted the policeman.
"We know the girl is here. We just saw her

come in."

165

166 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"There must be some mistake," said the
man. He shrugged his shoulders as the stal-
wart officer of the law led the way into one of
the rooms. For fully an hour we searched,
but no sign of Mary. Finally the officer
turned to me.

"See that?" he asserted, as he pointed to a
narrow passageway. "That leads to the alley,
and through it your friend left this house."

I walked back to the corner with my kind
aide. He promised to have the tumbledown
shack watched and to help find pretty Mary
Holden.

"That place is filled with theatrical people,"
said the policeman just as I bade him good
night. "Maybe a theatrical bureau can give
you some information that might be valuable.
A lot of girls hang around them trying to get
on the stage." Then he shook my hand and
wished me success.

I don't think I shall ever forget my adven-

I HUNT A JOB 167

'ture in the role of a stage-struck girl seeking
an engagement.

It seemed for about two weeks, while the
trail was fresh, that nearly every prominent
manager in the country wanted to engage me
as a leading woman — at least that was the im-
pression I gathered from the anxiety of the
agents I visited to secure my services.

When I started out on this angle of my
investigation I wore a natty short-skirted blue
serge suit, a pair of satin pumps and a jaunty
turban. I let my hair hang down my back in
a queue so as to enhance the impression of
extreme youth, and in my hand I carried a
silver chain reticule.

In the first theatrical bureau I visited I met
a young man who was seated at a desk talking
to a girl who had preceded me. When he saw
me he hurried the business through and nodded
with an ingratiating smile indicating that I
might approach.

i68 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I told the man I was from Montauk, Illi-
nois, and that I wished to go on the stage. He
glanced me over from head to foot in an ap-
praising sort of fashion, and then grinned.

"What line?" he inquired, tapping the desk
with his pencil.

"Vaudeville or light opera," I replied.
"I'd like a part if I can get it; I don't want to
go into the chorus."

"Any experience?" asked the young man in
dulcet tones.

"Some," I answered. "I can dance well,
and I know music too."

"Well," he reflected, "I have several places
open in outside vaudeville houses. Of course,
a girl's got to be wise to get along in the busi-
ness nowadays."

"You mean well educated?" I asked.

"Oh, wised up, you know — not too high-
toned to get along with her friends," he said.

"Do you think I can make good?" I coaxed.

I HUNT A JOB 169

"That" — and he favored me with another
X-ray inventory — "that depends on your
ankles, etc., my dear."

I thought this young man was sufficiently
friendly and so decided to go away, leaving my
'phone number, because he said he would call
me up as soon as he found the job I wanted,
which, he said, might be any minute.

As I left the office he called out to me that
I must be ready for a tryout at any time of the
day or night, because theatrical managers had
to provide for emergencies, and people want-
ing good engagements had to be prepared to
submit to trifling inconveniences.

Outside in the hallway I paused to get my
breath. In all my life I had never encoun-
tered anyone so frankly analytical of my per-
sonal endowments and attractions as Mr.
Blank had proved.

While I was standing there I heard the door
open between Mr. Blank's room and the next

ii7o MY BATTLES WITH VICE

office, where a man that writes songs holds
forth. The conversation was so loud that I
couldn't help hearing it.

"A peach!" cried Mr. Blank. I knew his
voice.

"Some class!" replied the other man. I
never saw him.

Of course they meant me, but since I had
purposely caparisoned myself like a gay lily
to get that theatrical job, and was ashamed to
go on the street because of my short skirt, the
opinions of Blank and company did not turn
my head. I crept quietly down the stairway
instead of waiting for the elevator.

Somehow I had no taste for further explora-
tion that day. I went home. Mother gave
me a head massage and I had partially re-
gained my poise by dinner time. We had
guests for dinner and they stayed rather late.
It was nearly twelve when they left. A few

I HUNT A JOB 171

minutes after the telephone rang. I answered
the bell. Mr. Blank was talking.

"Hello!" he called. "Is this Miss Mon-
tigny?"

"Yes," I answered as softly as possible.
"This is Cecile — who is speaking, please?"

"Say," trilled the other end, "this is Blank,
d'you get me?"

"You're the theatrical gentleman," I whis-
pered.

"Right-0, Kid," he laughed. "Say, I've
hooked a swell job for you in stock. It's a
road playing rep. I've got to come over and
talk it with you."

"But I live away over on the north side," I
cooed. "It's past midnight and I couldn't
think of asking you to call at this time of
night."

"Oh, that's all right," he rattled on, "it won't
take me many minutes. SVhat's the address?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION

THE nerve of Mr. Blank!

When he demanded to see me I told him
politely that I lived in a boarding house, and
that if I asked anyone to my room at this time
of night someone would be sure to criticise
me.

"What you want to do is to get a job before
you get worried about the critics," he
chuckled. "I've got the swellest job in the
business waiting on the stocks for you, but
we've got to close it to-night."

What he said about the critics nonplussed
me for an instant. Mr. Blank was a logician.

"The best I can do is to come down in the
morning and talk it over with you," I

pleaded— "will not that do?"

172

MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 173

"Oh, well, all right," he snapped, and I
heard him hang up the receiver.

I was fixing my hair for the night when the
telephone rang again. I answered it.

"Hello!" said a thick voice. "This is
Blank."

"Why, Mr. Blank," I interrupted, indig-
nantly, "do you know what time it is? It is
nearly one o'clock."

"Time?" he gurgled. "What's time to do
with us? Time was made for slaves."

"White slaves!" I let slip, inadvertently.

"What?" growled the man.

"Oh," I said, "I've got to go to bed."

"Wait a minute," urged Mr. Blank. "Say,
Kid, get on your glad rags and come on out —
make a sneak for it. I'm waiting down on the

corner."

"Why — there is no place we can talk this
time of night," I remonstrated. "Why can't
you wait until morning?"

174 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"I'll tell you when I see you," he insisted.
"Come on down — make a quick change."

"Mr. Blank," I laughed.

"Yes, sweetheart," drooled Mr. Blank.

"Good night!"

" " snarled the thick voice as I cut off

the connection.

A few minutes later the 'phone began ring-
ing again, so I pulled out the plugs of the re-
ceiver and put the useful little instrument out
of use for that night. Also I slept the sleep of
the just.

Now that is one side of the screen. Any
girl with slight experience and some personal
attractiveness is certain to be treated just as I
was when she tries to get on the theatrical
boards through her own personal unaided en-
deavor.

Let us see some of the other angles of this
everlasting girl hunt as it is conducted in the

MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 175

modern city of Chicago — the city wherein
"vice has been abolished."

I decided to go about the employment
agencies. You will recall that I told you of
one little experience I had with them in a
previous chapter.

Dressing myself in a flashy suit, topped off
with a hat that resembled an ostrich farm, also
wearing a wig to conceal my own dark hair,
I believe I succeeded in losing whatever ex-
ternal evidences of respectability I ever pos-
sessed.

First I called up four or five employment
agencies, and in each case something like this
conversation followed :

"Hello! This is Miss Montigny."

Generally there was a man on the other end
of the line.

"Yes — what can we do for you?"

"I am looking for some girls to work in a

176 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

hotel over a saloon. You know what I mean,
dearie ?"

I found the "dearie" invariably effective
when talking to a man.

"Yes, I know, but it's against the law for us
to furnish them, and we don't dare do business
over the 'phone."

"Well, never mind," I admonished. "Look
'em up, and I'll come down."

With another agency on the line I had better
luck. The man agreed to get the girls and
have them ready for me to look over right
away, but he would not make a deal as to price
over the telephone.

"Say!" he shouted, as I was about to hang
up, "do you want squabs or broads?"

"Oh, little ones," I giggled. "Don't want
any old ladies, you know — I ain't running a
home for the aged."

That callous bit of repartee seemed to make
me very popular with the man on the 'phone.

MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 177

He promised that he would send me a "bunch"
of new ones.

I boarded a street car and was soon in the
office of this accommodating personage. He
was a short, thick-set man with shiny, strong
teeth. His eyes were long and narrow. He
may have been a foreigner, but he spoke good
English. His hair was jet black and he wore
diamonds on two fingers.

"I'm Miss Montigriy," I told him.

"You called about some furniture?" he in-
quired.

"Yes," I said. "What luck have you had ?"

"Well," he croaked, "we've got plenty of
second hand stuff all the time, but when you
want it right out of the factory, it's not so easy
all the time. What kind of a place did you
say it was?"

"Hotel and saloon," I smiled. "There'll be
a bit in it for you."

"There are three or four squabs 'down near

,178 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

where I stay now," he put in. "They're look-
ing for a chance, I know. Of course, I can't
go to 'em direct, but I'll find out about 'em be-
fore night. What do I get?"

I named a sum that I thought would attract
him. It did. His eyes became narrower and
longer than ever, and his lips moved as if he
were eating candy. He was sensing the
money.

Within four hours I was promised eight
young girls to come to that visionary saloon
and hotel of mine, avowedly for evil purposes.
Out of the fifteen agencies I talked to only
three appeared to have no system of providing
for the emergency they thought I wanted
filled.

And yet there is supposed to be a rigid
supervision of such places. What sort of in-
spection do you suppose can be in effect when
a system such as I describe is permitted to
exist?

CHAPTER XIX

GRAY WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE

BEWARE of the Gray Wolf.

Gray Wolf is a wary creature that prowls at
night, but is not above locating his prey in
ithe daytime. It is the most dangerous denizen
of the undergrowth that bewilders little girls
adrift.

Gray Wolf often is a very respectable-look-
ing prowler. He looks as though it might be
safe to ask him the way home, but to repose
much confidence in him often is a fatal error,
for the Gray Wolf is a predatory animal, keen
of scent, resourceful.

Sometimes you may have seen gray wolves
with only a little gray above their ears — the
rest of them sleek and shiny, black or brown.
But do not be deceived! Always look for the

179

i8o MY BATTLES WITH VICE

gray patches above the ears. It is a sign to
betray and warn.

Also beware of the Love Pirate. She is a
dangerous character. She often is brilliantly
plumaged, furred and feathered. Again, she
may be demurely but expensively garmented.
She preys upon Gray Wolf and roams through
the tangled undergrowths with him when
Gray Wolf hasn't any more interesting quarry
in sight.

Also Love Pirate is the worst enemy of the
wife and home. "Dolled up," she haunts
downtown in the very thick of things, where
men live their lives.

The wife in the home is last seen by her de-
parting spouse in a sort of wrapper or morn-
ing gown. When he compares her appear-
ance as he last saw her with that of the radiant,
smartly shirt-waisted girl who wears carefully
dressed hair, it is likely to be to the wife's
disadvantage.

WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 181

Love Pirate knows her advantage an'd uses
it. She is on the alert to attract men who can
further her own purposes. She is unscrupu-
lous. And she gets her training in evil from
Gray Wolf.

Any large city is filled with gray wolves.
Some of them are merely blase habitues of the
underworld — others are foolish family men in
search of adventure.

There are not so many love pirates as gray
wolves. That is why the gray wolves are
always hunting. The favorite prey of Gray
Wolf is the unsophisticated young girl who is
just entering an industrial career and is having
a hard time to make both ends meet. The
cafes are favorite hunting grounds of Gray
Wolf after nightfall, but in the daytime he is
at home among the tall office buildings of the
business district.

It was to find out the methods of Gray Wolf
that I obtained a position as an office girl with

i8z MY BATTLES WITH VICE

a downtown concern in the brokerage line.
My duties were not heavy, but "tact" was re-
quired in handling the business. It was often
necessary to lie deliberately over the telephone
in order to conserve the interests of this con-
cern.

The office girl who cannot or will not lie
glibly when she is told to do so is not popular.
Generally she accepts the situation, weakens
her position by creating a sort of secret bond
between herself and her employer, and thus
finds herself exposed to other indignities.

In the office that employed me were two
other girls. One, Mercedes, was an attractive
blonde who wore handsome clothes. The
other does not figure in this story. I happen
to know that Mercedes had her clothes made
by a modiste whose lowest price is $80 for a
suit. Also, Mercedes lives in a flat out South
that costs $70 a month and is elaborately fur-
nished. Mercedes' salary is $15 a week. She

WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 183

never earned that much by any office activities
that I was able to observe.

Mercedes' hats are creations. They are the
sweetly simple confections that cost out of all
proportion for the materials in them.

Mercedes' shoes are the $12 a pair sort.
Mercedes is popular with the head of the firm.
He has gray patches over his ears and is him-
self an exquisite in matters sartorial.

After I had been in the place a week Mer-
cedes whispered to me that the second partner
of the firm, Mr. Hunter, had "fallen for my
kid getup."

"Believe me," said Mercedes, "there's noth-
ing gets these old goats like the baby face stuff
and the hair in a braid. Hunter asked me to
frame it for a luncheon 'prelim.' "

"Why, what would he want me to go to
luncheon for?" I objected. "He doesn't
know me at all."

"That's just the idea, you little rube," said

1 84 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

Mercedes, patting her blonde curls as she
glanced in the mirror. "He wants to know
you."

"Well, I'm not going to luncheon with a
man I don't know at all, except that I am
working for him," I persisted.

"Say!" interposed Mercedes, lowering her
voice a little, "you won't go far in the working
game downtown unless you know how to
amuse the big ones that give out good jobs.
Hunter's married up to the ears and he don't
get along with his wife. Of course, they got
a swell place and all that, but he stays down
at the club a great deal. When he wants to
take you to lunch, you're in luck, believe me,
Kid."

Just then Mr. Hunter came through from
an inner office with some papers in his hand.

"Miss Mercedes," he said, "will you please
type these reports and turn them over to Mr.
Carson?"

WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 185

I am afraid my face was suffused with
blushes as I realized this was the man who
wanted to take me to luncheon when I had
never exchanged a word with him. Mr.
Hunter paused by my desk and remarked that
it was a "glorious day." I realized that he
had an attractive voice.

I had no further opportunity to speak to
Mercedes until that afternoon, when she told
me that the date for the luncheon had been all
fixed up and followed the announcement with
some sage advice.

"Take my tip," said Mercedes ; "Hunter'll
treat you white. You've got the makeup to
be a real swell kid if you have the right
clothes, and if you're friends with men like
Hunter they expect to see that you've always
got plenty of glad rags. The chances of peo-
ple getting wise aren't very strong because
men like this push have to be careful. They
can't afford to get any bum publicity, see?"

[i 86 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Do you mean that he will buy clothes for
me?" I asked.

"Buy clothes?" repeated Mercedes, mock-
ing my accent. "Why, you're singing it right.
He will buy clothes and maybe a ring or two
and a lot more. And another thing, you're
pretty safe with such men, because they aren't
the kind that want to go tearing round the
boulevards joy riding or any stunts like that.
What they want is a quiet time with a girl that
knows when she is well off and don't tell all
she knows."

"What does this man expect of me in return
for such generous treatment?" I demanded.

CHAPTER XX

IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT

MERCEDES laughed.

"God's sake!" she said. "You're a comic
little fish. Why, what d'you suppose a man
wants for his generous treatment? He wants
you to be nice to him and call him 'Mister' in
the ofEce and 'Charlie' when you're outside,
and to look swell and have a good time."

"Is he getting a divorce from his wife?" I
inquired.

"Divorce!" cried Mercedes, "I should say
he ain't. Why, don't you know the Hunters?
Say, he's got one of the swellest homes in High-
bridge. He and his wife are a most devoted
couple — got four children and seven or eight
servants."

187

1 88 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Well," I remarked reflectively, "I don't
see how he could be seen in restaurants and
places like that with a single girl and not get
into trouble."

"You leave that to him. These old guys
are wise, believe me," pursued my friend, the
Love Pirate. "Now, I've been going with
old Goldfish for pretty nearly four years and
there hasn't ever been a whisper. We had
one old she crab in the office that got kind of
wise. That was over a year ago. She never
said a thing, but one day she sniffed when I
had on a new gown from Paris, and I told
Goldfish about it. She didn't last long enough
to whisper farewell."

By degrees Mercedes informed me of the
conditions that exist in some downtown offices,
of the relations between the girl and the em-
ployer that cause so many divorce suits in the
course of a year in Chicago.

"Say!" she advised, "one of the first things

IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 189

you want to do is to get a 'steady' that will take
you 'round in public — theaters and places like
that, don't you see? You've got to have a fel-
low like that for a stall. Get one that's on the
marry. It's safest to have somebody for steady
company all the time. You can never tell
what might happen. If there's any blowup
all you've got to do is to show that you've been
keeping steady company right along, and the
other stuff is just malicious gossip, see?"

Then came my personal experience with
Hunter. He was exceedingly courteous to me
in the office — quite in the employerly way.
All it amounted to was a display of considera-
tion for my inexperience of the business and a
kindly courtesy that would have excited my
gratitude and admiration if it had not been
for Mercedes' confidences.

It wasn't a luncheon I attended, but an
elaborate dinner. I pretended I had no even-
ing clothes of my own and Mercedes fixed me

I9o MY BATTLES WITH VICE

in a pale blue gown that I flatter myself suited
me very well. It was a little too wide in the
shoulders, but otherwise I might have owned
the gown.

The meal was served in Mercedes' apart-
ment. A middle-aged woman was introduced
to me as Mercedes' "Aunt Pet." This woman
looked the part and acted it very well. Mer-
cedes admitted to me that she was no relation
at all, but was hired at $50 a month to sustain
the reputation of the house.

"Aunt Pet" did not attend the dinner. She
superintended all the service, but did not sit
at the table. That was laid for four in elabo-
rate fashion with rare flowers and some of the
prettiest favors I ever saw. There were cock-
tails as a preliminary to the dinner of five
courses, and wine was served with each course,
champagne being the last on the list and the
most persistent. I refused to drink the wines
at all, and this seemed to hurt my enter-

IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 191

tainers keenly. Mercedes was especially cha-
grined.

At last I drank a small glass of champagne,
but I saw it poured from a newly opened bottle
and steadfastly declined to repeat the dose.

Mercedes drank a good deal of wine; she
became very loquacious. She put her arms
around Goldfish's neck at the table and he re-
proved her for it.

"There's a time and place for everything,"
said Goldfish sagely. He appeared to be
really annoyed.

Throughout the meal Mr. Hunter displayed
toward me a deferential courtesy that really
was fascinating. He is skillect in the polite
arts and subtilely ingratiating.

Perhaps my poor showing as a conversa-
tionalist at the dinner table caused this gentle-
man to believe that I wished him to lead up to
the subject of our future relation as Mercedes
Had sketched it. At all events he did so.

J92 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

Mercedes and Goldfish were tete-a-tete in
the front part of the flat. He was somewhat
exhilarated by the wine. He talked loudly.
Mr. Hunter had taken me into the "den" to
show me a lot of portraits Mercedes had had
taken in bathing costume at a summer resort.
Some of them were very daring.

While we were alone in the room Mr.
Hunter made no ungentlemanly advances.
Once he partly put his arm round me as he
escorted me through the portieres, but it was
such a venture as any well bred man may make
without offense.

I began to believe that Mercedes had lied.
Of course it was very irregular — my being
there as the guest of a married man — but after
all, if he were unhappy with his wife he might
seek mere harmless entertainment without
being altogether a villain.

Actually I had begun to make excuses. for
Gray Wolf. I became convinced that Mer-

IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 193

cedes had misunderstood this man. Once we
were looking at the pictures his face was very
close to mine. I wondered if he would seize
the opportunity to kiss me, but he did not.

I heard Mercedes dancing in the other room
and Goldfish was clapping his hands. One of
those automatic music things was playing the
Tango.

"Mercy's lots of fun, isn't she?" suggested
Mr. Hunter.

"Very lively," I agreed.

"Do you like her?" pursued my companion.

"Quite well," I lied.

There was a pause.

"Clare," began Mr. Hunter.

I started. It was the first time he had ven-
tured upon my supposed first name.

"How would you like to live here with
Mercedes and be my little friend?" went on
the Gray Wolf. "You would be very com-
fortable, I think."

i94 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"I can't live in a place like this on six dol-
lars a week," I said. "It is all I can do to
pay my board where I am."

"Well, there'll never be any quarrels be-
tween us about what money you need, if you
want to come," he pursued.

Hunter was sitting on the edge of a low
divan. His elbows were on his knees and his
chin in his hands. His eyes were fixed on
mine and I shuddered. The man was posi-
tively purring like a cat. I never experienced
so strange a sensation as that caused by his
steady gaze.

With an effort I got up and staggered to-
ward the door. It was a real stagger. I was
ill from excitement and fear of discovery.

"Mr. Hunter," I pleaded, "please give me
time to think this over. I must go home now
-I must. I'm ill."

"Good Lord!" gasped Gray Wolf, "what a;
brute I am! Mercedes. Come, Mercedes!"

IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 195

Mercedes came running and I told her I
must go home — that I was subject to fits and
that I felt one coming on. It was a false move,
because the men insisted on having Mercedes
go with me in the taxi, but by the time we
reached the Congress Hotel I was able to per-
suade her that I could reach my place better
on the street car. I told her I "was afraid to
talk."

Mercedes went home in the taxi. I went
home in the street car to Mother. Glad, in-
deed, I was to get there, but after all I would
not have missed that experience. It told me
many volumes in a chapter.

CHAPTER XXI

CARMEN OF THE TORPEDO CAFE

THE Torpedo Cafe is a gay place. I was told
about Carmen of the Torpedo Cafe. She was
described as one of the most beautiful girls
ever seen in a cafe — big, black Spanish eyes,
masses of raven hair and a slight sinuous form
that lent itself naturally to the queer fandangos
and so-called Spanish dances with which
Carmen, in her liveliest moods, is wont to re-
gale the guests of the Torpedo.

So I sought out Carmen and made her be-
lieve I had Spanish blood in my veins. That
was easy enough, since Carmen cannot speak
a word of her supposed native tongue and is
really at home "back of the stock yards."

Carmen is frankly a thief. She "dopes"

the drinks of her victims trapped in the Tor-

196

CARMEN OF THE CAFfi 197

pedo and then robs them. Her profits from
this nefarious trade average, when business is
good, about $25 a night. She is protected in
her work by a score of thugs and pluguglies
disguised as waiters, whose business it is to
"play up" to the women who infest the place.

I had been trying to induce Carmen to take
an interest in some other occupation than this
when she turned the tables and insisted that
the Torpedo was no place for me. She said
if I went into the place I surely would en-
counter trouble. After her warning it was
with real trepidation that I entered the cafe,
even though professionally chaperoned.

The roof of the place is decorated with
many lights and there are paintings in the nude
on most of the available wall space. A crowd
of white-coated waiters flit among a score or
more tables at which were seated a great many
women whose status in life was not to be
doubted.

198 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

At a piano near our table sat an effeminate
young man who tossed off a glass of some
liquid and then struck up a wriggly ragtime
tune that set the customers jingling their
glasses and tapping with their feet, the pianist
meantime humping his shoulders and twisting
and contorting his body a la Paderewski.

"Say, Kid," whispered Carmen, "think of
me working for eight a week in some depart-
ment store when I can cop twenty or thirty a
night at this game."

"Nobody seems to be making anything now
except a noise," I suggested.

"They're layin' pipe," smiled Carmen.
"Watch 'em get busy after a while."

A pale sleepy-looking young man came and
sat down at our table. He nodded to Car-
men, but did not appear to be regarded by her
with particular interest. Carmen presented
him to me as "Izzy the Coke." She explained
that girls had to have escorts, and that Izzy

CARMEN OF THE CAFfi 199

was one of an army of "professional escorts,"
that worked in the place. She said they were
hired by the management to sit with girls until
"live ones" showed up.

Men were beginning to come into the place
alone. How they found their way was a mys-
tery to me until Carmen told me they had been
"steered." As soon as a customer entered he
was invited to sit at one or another of the
tables, and the preliminaries of the game be-
gan. The waiters gave the "buyers" no rest.
It was round after round of drinks and the
"live ones" paid for everything.

Every few minutes one of the women would
go out with a man, and after an hour or so I
saw the same woman drifting back — alone.
Some of the girls were very young.

Two young men came and sat down at our
table. Carmen told me I must "play up."

"Just keep one of them interested while I fix
the other one," ordered Delilah. "It's the

200 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

fellow with the long hair that' s got the roll,"

The young fellow I was talking to told me it
was his first visit to Chicago. He had heard
a good deal about it being a "gay town," but
he thought the Torpedo was the best place he
had struck. I made up my mind to get that
boy out of the den if I could.

"You may take me home," I said to the
young man.

"Thanks," he grinned. Then to his friend:
"I'll meet you down at the hotel, Hi. I'm
going to take this young lady home."

"Ain't so slow yourself," laughed Carmen,
meaningly.

That young fellow led me to my own door.
I invited him in and my mother talked to him
until nearly two o'clock in the morning. I
wonder if he will ever go to the Torpedo
again. He really was a very decent boy.

At two-fifteen the telephone rang. It was
Carmen on the line.

CARMEN OF THE CAFfi 20 ii

"Say!" she giggled, "I rolled that boob for
forty."

Now, if I were straining for dramatic
effects, that would be the end of this chapter,
but it isn't. The next day my young friend of
the Torpedo Cafe called me up and said that
his fellow townsman lay critically ill in a hos-
pital, apparently suffering from some drug.

I at once sought out Carmen. It was in the
early afternoon when I found her. When
taxed with having 'drugged the man, she
denied it, and insisted that he had left her
company for that of two men known to the
underworld as capable of any crime. Carmen
told me she had taken the money from her vic-
tim while he was in an alcoholic sleep, but
that soon afterwards he awoke, demanding
more drink, and went in search of it without
discovering his loss.

"He'd have been frisked before he got a
block, anyhow," she insisted. c Why shouldn't ,

202 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

I have the money as well as some jackroller?"
At all events, the man died two days after-
ward— of "pneumonia," according to the death
certificate. Perhaps that is what he died of,
but I don't believe it.

CHAPTER XXII

IKE BLOSSOM

I HAD heard a great deal about Ike Blossom,
captain of a pirate ship in the "district" known
as "Freiheit's." This had always been de-
clared one of the most notorious resorts in Chi-
cago, and only recently has been closed up.
fThe final locking of the doors came after a
shooting affray in which one man was killed.
However, my visit there was some time before
this.

One night with a detective friend of mine I
paid a visit to Freiheit's dance hall and cafe.
The detective was of my own sex. She was
attired like a lily of the -field. I flatter myself
that the plum-colored broadcloth with fake
ermine facings that I wore on this expedition
did much to secure the entree.

203

204 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

The detective believed that at Freiheit's we
might get a clew which would lead to the dis-
covery of Mary Holden.

We secured the services of two men friends
to escort us. When we entered the hall with
its gleaming lights and artistic decorations I
was surprised that so attractive a place could
have achieved so evil a reputation.

The tables for the serving of refreshment
formed a circle 'rou^d the room. There was
nothing about this place to suggest evil. Per-
haps well meaning people had exaggerated the
menace of Freiheit's. As far as I was able to
determine the men and women in the place
seemed respectable. This was a first impres-
sion.

I have attended some of the swaggerest
dancing affairs ever held in Chicago, and I
must confess that in all my life I have never
seen more really beautiful girls and women on

IKE BLOSSOM 205

a ballroom floor than were congregated at
Freiheit's that night.

It was true, also, that while some of them
were extravagantly gowned, the majority were
dressed elegantly and in good taste. Many of
the men were in evening dress. The spectacle
was one worth going to see simply for its
beauty.

The woman detective pinched my arm and
pointed to a big man in a gray suit and soft
hat, who stood at one end of the hall, survey-
ing the spectacle.

"That's Ike," she said, "looking over his
flock."

The man seemed to be appraising every-
thing— the size of the crowd, the activity of
the waiters, the proportion of women to men —
the chances of trade. He had an embracing
eye.

We chose a table on the opposite side of the

2o6 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

hall from that at which we had entered, being
thus enabled to observe others who arrived
and to visualize the constantly augmented
throng.

We were barely seated before a waiter stood
at our table ready to serve us drinks. The
detective told me we must order something or
they would be wanting us to move on. She
ordered beer for two.

Just then the pianist struck up a catchy
syncopated air and a pretty girl, one of the en-
tertainers, danced out from between a row
of palms, singing a popular song. She danced
one of those pseudo-oriental things that call
for all sorts of wriggling and contortion of the
body. It was graceful in a certain way, but
undeniably sensuous. The words of the song
were as suggestive as the dance.

Later, an orchestra in the balcony above
struck up a lively twostep and fifty or more
couples got up from the tables and began

IKE BLOSSOM 207

dancing. There was hardly an unskilled
dancer among them. Nearly all the steps
executed were intricate and most of them
graceful, but it was scarcely a ballroom ex-
hibition.

There was something stagey about the danc-
ing at this period of the evening's entertain-
ment, and later on I found out why. Most
of the men and women in these preliminary
numbers were paid professionals.

Soon the place filled with real patrons —
those who pay to dance and pay for the drinks
they get, and really support places like Frei-
heit's.

There were old men with young girls, and
old girls with young men. There were
women lacquered like Japanese pottery, their
real features completely hidden by paint and
powder.

There were girls not over fifteen years old
with men old enough to be their grandfathers.

208 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

In most instances the girls were said to be
habitues of the place.

At least twenty of the young girls on the
floor were, physically speaking, perfect speci-
mens of American girlhood. I pointed them
out to the woman detective.

"They are the aristocracy of the profession,"
she said.

These young women are in the heyday of
their careers in the levee. They will look
fresh and beautiful as they do now for perhaps
six or eight months. After the first winter
one can begin to pick out the lines round their
faces and little perpendicular marks at the
corners of their mouths. That is the begin-
ning. About the second or third year they
become coarsened to an astounding degree-
physically as well as mentally. Loose living
and mental degradation show in their faces
first. The lines of the face change. The
features become exaggerated.

IKE BLOSSOM 209

"A young woman," said my friend, "who is
inclined to heaviness will become gross and
gelatinous within a few years. In five years
she is hideous."

The strange part of it all, I discovered, even
the oldest of the faded women one encounters
in places like Freiheit's still believes that she
retains some degree of her original attractive-
ness— her ability to beguile men.

A survey of Freiheit's soon convinced me
why they called Ike Blossom the "King of the
Levee." In the parlance of the underworld
he had "Queens" galore swarming about his
palace of iniquity.

CHAPTER XXIII

MAZELLE

ONE of the most attractive girls in Ike Blos-
som's dance hall was referred to as Mazelle.
If there is a more strikingly beautiful girl in
Chicago I cannot imagine where she can be.
This brilliant brunette has all the delicate
shadings of coloring and expression that go to
make real beauty. Her lithe young figure is
the epitome of grace and her every gesture is
indicative of gentle breeding.

Now how in the world did Mazelle become
a denizen of the half-world? I determined to
ask her. This was more easily planned than
accomplished, because of Mazelle's tremen-
dous popularity. Men watched every move,
anxious to engage her attention if oppor-
tunity presented.

210

MAZELLE 211

At last I managed to be presented. My
woman detective friend did it. She knew
Mazelle and had tried to get her out of the
district.

"Breaking into the fold?" inquired the dark-
eyed Delilah, after I had been introduced.

"Just looking on," I said.

"It's a dangerous diversion," she retorted.
"All of us are onlookers at first. I was too."
She lighted a cigarette.

"Tell me about it," I begged.

"What magazine?" she laughed.

"None," I assured her — "I am just an every-
day person who is looking for a missing
girl."

"Good gracious !" she said. "Don't tell me
you're Lucy Page Gaston?" She puffed
slowly at the cigarette.

The exclamation was accompanied with a
comical gesture of apprehension that made me
laugh in spite of myself. Miss Gaston, you

212 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

know, is the woman who is warring on ciga-
rettes. Mazelle is an artiste.

"My idea is that a girl as brilliant as you
are ought to find field for her talents superior
to this," I ventured.

"Dear me," she laughed, "that's rather hard
on my philanthropic friend Blossom, isn't it?"

"Is he a philanthropist any of the time?" I
queried.

"Ikey?" she shrugged. "Why, poor, dear
Ike is the most maligned man in this sinful
town. He's positively reeking with the spirit
of philanthropy."

Just at that moment gray-clad Blossom
passed down the room. Mazelle caught his
eye and he bowed. She signaled him, laugh-
ing merrily at the joke of it all.

"Ikey, dear," she babbled, "tell me honestly
and truly, now — aren't you a philanthropist?"

"Got your kiddin' clothes on again, Maze?"
grinned the man in gray. "Why, I'd be as

MAZELLE 213

big a hit in a council of philanthropists as
you'd be in a mothers' meeting. It's an even
break."

The large Mr. Blossom passed down the
hall. His shoulders were shaking with
laughter.

An instant later Mazelle was sailing down
the polished floor with a man who claimed her
for a dance. They told me the man was crazy
to marry her, and she wouldn't have him be-
cause he made his money in whiskey.

Do you recall what I wrote about the con-
tradictions of character to be found in the
underworld? Well, consider Mazelle. She
was ruined by her first drink of whiskey. She
has never taken a drink of alcoholic liquor
since she awoke to realization of her shame.
She is a rara avis among the demimonde.

"For my sins," said Mazelle, the last time I
saw her, "I shall probably live a long time.
At all events there is one man I want to kill,

2i4 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

and some day I expect to meet him. That day
I want to be very sober."

And talking about contradictions of char-
acter, Mazelle is the bond slave of a heavy-
fisted rascal of a waiter named Monohan. If
she doesn't gather much money he beats her.

Couples were constantly leaving the place
by a certain exit. I asked where they were
going.

"They go to the hotels hereabouts," said my
friend — "that is part of the play. If these
young girls could be kept in the hall until
closing time and then sent home it wouldn't
be so bad, but the dives called 'hotels' are just
traps for them. It is the stronghold of the
system."

Young girls were staggering about with
flushed faces and bright eyes. They laughed
unnaturally and danced with disgraceful
abandon.

My guide remarked that if I wanted to get

MAZELLE 215

a real light on the sort of talk carried on among
young girls I would better step into the wash-
room for a moment. I did.

Never had I imagined that girls under what-
ever provocation could frame such awful
phrases as fell casually from the lips of these
children.

As I was wiping my hands on a towel
handed me with ceremony by a colored woman
attendant a very young girl lurched toward me
and poked a little sack of tobacco with a pack-
age of cigarette papers into my hand.

"Roll me one," she hiccoughed; "I'm all to
the blowsy."

I can't roll a cigarette, but I thought I could.
After I had tried twice, intent on evading the
exposure of my amateur standing in the place,
little fifteen-year-old Tosca snatched the
"makin's" away.

"You're a of a rounder," she sneered.

"Why, I can roll better'n that with my toes."

2i6 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

And I guess she could. At any rate I didn't
dispute her.

Five minutes later we were out of the place.
I had seen enough.

CHAPTER XXIV

"THE CAVE"

I UNDERTOOK to look into certain saloons with
hotel attachments. The first place I entered
was one of those that make a pretense of in-
sisting that escorts must accompany the girls
who enter — and they supply the escorts. I
was joined by a man who asked me how busi-
ness was. My reply was that it wras "pretty
tough sledding."

"Well," he said, "if you are broke, Tom will
stake you. Of course we want you to stick
around and get the kale when it's here, but
Tom won't see you want for nothing."

Just then a little girl about sixteen entered
the rear door. She ought to have been in
short skirts as far as her age was concerned,
but she proved to be a habitue of the place.

217

2i8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

"Come over here and meet Mabel," said my
supposed escort to the new girl. Mabel was
the name I had given him. I forget what my
last name is supposed to have been.

Tora came over and ordered the inevitable
drinks.

"Of course," she said, "this ain't no angel
food bakery, but there's worse."

"Do they really give you money?" I asked.

"Oh, they'll hand you a few bones if you're
down to your stocking feet," she laughed,
"but they hold onto you when it comes to set-
tling. I never have a cent I can call my own.
They get it all away, one way or another."

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Fifteen past," she giggled. "Say, I'm
some mover for my age. Tom says there ain't
a wiser girl on the street than what I am."

"Is Tom the proprietor of the place?" I
asked.

"Naw; he's working for another guy that's

"THE CAVE" 219

workin' for somebody else that's leasing from
somebody else. I guess the brewery furnishes
the money."

Just then a group of young men entered the
place, and one of them signaled to my com-
panion. She rose and joined the party at the
other table. There was some little conversa-
tion, and then Tora, as they called her, came
back to urge me to join the party.

I refused on the plea that I was feeling
"bad," and couldn't drink. On that plea I
got out of the place and entered another of
similar stripe farther down the street.

In this place there is a dark rear room. In
one corner of it I saw a girl sitting alone. She
was leaning over a table, her head in her arms.
There were no waiters present, so I walked up
to her and touched her hand.

When she looked up I was shocked. It was
Alice, the pretty little girl who had come down
to show me her gay clothes that Christmas

220 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

Eve in the department store just before closing
time. She recognized me and burst into
tears.

"You down on the row too?" she wept.
"Ain't this a h— of a life?"

Her shoulders heaved and she sobbed piti-
fully.

"How'd you know I was here?" she de-
manded.

"I didn't know. God guided me," I told
her.

"Then I wish He'd got busy sooner," she
gasped between sobs; "it's too late to get me
out now."

I explained to her that I knew a place where
she would be given a home and taken care of
until I could find her work, and she seemed to
be thinking it over.

"Say, do you want to do me a favor?" she
asked, suddenly. And when I assured her I
did, she blurted out: "Then for God's sake

"THE CAVE" 221

get me a good sure-shot dose of poison — that's
what I want. And, first of all, get me a big
slug of whiskey. I'm dyin' on my feet."

The hardest job I have had in a good many
months was to get Alice to go with me. She
told me that nearly every rascal of the under-
world knew her by sight and would get her
thrown out of any position she might enter.

"Well, let them try it," I answered. "I
don't believe they will dare."

"Another thing, I owe some of these guys
as much as $20 and $25 apiece in money bor-
rowed," she went on. "They'll always slip
you money when you're drinking, so you
always owe 'em something. I don't remember
getting any of the money, but they say I owe
it."

Well, Alice is working in the kitchen of a
private sanitarium. She has been there sev-
eral months and is apparently quite content.
I visited her just a short while ago, and her

222 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

one desire is to keep safely beyond the ken of
"Watchful Johnny."

A few nights ago I paid a visit to The Cave.
That is the last resort of the unfortunate
woman. In the vernacular they refer to the
place as "Coffee and Rolls." That is all any
woman gets who works there.

Madeline was sitting at one of the tables.
We have tried to induce her to reform, but she
is beyond saving, I fear. Morphine, cocaine
and whiskey have destroyed her will.

A very old man who looked as though he
might have seen better days staggered across
the floor. The Cave is surrounded with boxes,
in which couples may sit. This is against the
law, I think.

"There's an old down and outer," said
Madeline. "He used to be down at the old
California, in Custom House Place, years ago.
Too* much whiskey. He still hangs on because
somebody's always ready to buy him a drink."

"THE CAVE" 223

The old man raised his head. "I Would
Not Live Always," he sang. His voice shook.
I turned away. I could not bear the sight.

"It's the old story," Madeline continued,
"but the strange part is when you've got health
and strength you never figure that what gets
all others is going to get you too. You
couldn't warn anybody off by telling them to
look at Old Whiskers there," she soliloquized.

The old man finished his song. I was too
much moved to applaud. A duet was started
by two girls. Their hoarse voices jangled dis-
cordantly. I bade Madeline good night.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ESCAPE

THERE are hundreds of girls in Chicago, now
respectably employed, who have been dragged
out of the jaws of living death by women
whose work is done quietly and effectively.
Many of these women are not known as philan-
thropists or crusaders. They try to keep out
of the limelight so that they may be more effec-
tive in their work. It is to the indefatigable
patience of these good women that so many
girls are snatched from the bondage of Watch-
ful Johnny of the System.

On my way downtown a few days after my
experience at The Cave I read with interest a
story in the newspaper about a girl who had

been arrested in a raid on a bawdy house.

224

THE ESCAPE 225

The account told how the girl had endeavored
to escape from the clutches of the slavers, and
how her alleged husband, "Bull" Tevis, a no-
torious underworld creature, had beaten her.
I lost no time in going to the police station
where the newspaper stated the girl was being
detained.

I asked the matron at the station to see the
girl, and she led me upstairs into a large room
enclosed by iron bars. Over in a corner of
this large cell, for indeed it was a cell, I saw
a girl sobbing heavily. I walked over to her.
She turned her face from me.

"You can't hide from me," I said. "I
would know you anywhere."

The girl was Mary Holden, pretty Mary
Holden, for whom I had been searching.

"Why do you come here?" she asked, not
looking up.

"Because," I replied, "I want to take you
back to your mother."

226 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

The girl arose and rushed into my arms,
holding me tight in her embrace. The light
had begun to flicker again in her life,

"I want to be good," she cried. "I want to
be good."

The matron's eyes filled with tears.

"Come," said the pleasant-faced matron,
"there are some big, comfortable chairs over
here, where you can visit," and she pointed
toward the center of the room.

She then went out through the big iron door.

"You can speak freely," I said to Mary.
"That is, if you trust me?"

"Yes," she began, "I do trust you ever so
much."

There was a brief silence.

"Do you think you could get me out of
here?" she inquired.

"I can try," I returned.

"If you only could," with entreaty. "I'd
do anything."

THE ESCAPE 227

"Would you return to your mother?" I in-
terrupted.

"My mother!" she cried. "Will she take
me back?"

"Your mother wants you to come home."

A look of shame swept over her young face
as she cried, "I can't go back home. What
will they think of me?"

"But your mother loves you enough to move
away from Limaville, to take you to a new
town where you can begin your life again."

"If we only could," she faltered, her face
lighting up with hope. Suddenly tears
gushed from her eyes, and in broken phrases
she told me her story, told me all that had
happened to her since that day she left her
home to seek work in Chicago.

Pathetically she related the difficulty she
had had in getting a position which would pay
her enough to live comfortably. How, after
heartbreaking disappointments, she had man-

228 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

aged to get work in the department store, the
same one in which I had worked the day be-
fore Christmas.

There she met Bill— Bill King, the flashily
dressed youth "who was related to one of the
bosses upstairs." King invited her to go to
lunch. Her slim purse had prompted her to
accept the invitation. When their friendship
ripened, King bought her presents, fine clothes,
and treated her "right." Then he introduced
her to Tevis— "Bull" Teris.

Tevis made love to her; he promised her a
little home of her own, to take her out of
drudgery. She accepted. Then a marriage
ceremony was performed. Later she learned
it was only a mock marriage ceremony. The
same day she found out the kind of man "Bull"
Tevis really was.

'It was not until the girl had been placed in
a questionable hotel that Tevis' real purpose
was made known to her. One night a man

THE ESCAPE 229

broke into her room while Tevis was away.
Mary fought him like a young tigress.

While she was still hysterical from the abuse
to which she had been subjected, Tevis re-
turned. His rage was magnificent. He be-
gan berating little Mary with the vilest abuse
conceivable, declaring in a loud voice that she
had deceived him.

In vain, Mary said, she protested. She was
beaten into silence. Tevis' "honor" had been
outraged and he took good care that the fact
should be advertised. That was the first essen-
tial.

Mary said she labored and prayed in an
effort to convince her "husband" that she had
fought desperately against the attack of the
man who entered her room. She begged
him to believe that she had never seen the man
before in her life, that she did not know him,
that she resisted with all her strength.

"For two days he left me alone," continued

230 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

Mary, "but carefully watched me, you may be
sure. Then he reappeared. He had a propo-
sition to make. He said he did not feel like
living with me after what had happened, but
he said he felt I ought to be willing to make
amends to him for the wrong I had done. He
threatened to write my mother his own version
of the story, and again I ple&ded.

"And this was his proposition! I was to
enter a vile place, and my earnings were to be
turned over to him for a certain period, after
which, as he suggested, I should be permitted
to make money for myself.

"Then I began to sense the scheme. I ac-
cused Tevis of having plotted with the man
who attacked me for the purpose of com-
pelling me to enter a sinful life. He denied
it, but the denial was not convincing.

"Then I was taken to that house where you
found me. You know how I got away, but

THE ESCAPE 231

the following day one of the 'gang' picked me
up and I was returned like a lost article to my
'husband.' "

The girl paused to check the tears rolling
unheeded down her cheeks. Indeed, she had
been through a terrible ordeal. I begged her
to continue.

"Then I was taken to that hotel in South
State Street where you saw me standing out-
side the entrance and nearly spoke to me," she
said. "I want to explain the reason I evaded
you and went into the building.

"Tevis was just a few feet behind you stand-
ing in a doorway. He told me he knew you
were after me, and that he intended to kill
you the first chance he got. His idea was to
do the shooting away from the levee, because
he said newspaper notoriety would hurt the
'district.'

"I didn't want you to get into any trouble

232 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

over me, so I hurried into the hotel with a
man I knew, a friend of Tevis. I guess Tevis
never saw you at all.

"Then when the knock came at the door I
predicted trouble; so did the hotel keeper.
The noise frightened him and he told all the
roomers to leave through the passageway
which led to the alley. The policeman, I was
told afterward, frightened the hotel keeper.

"Later Tevis took me to a dive, and when
the place was raided we were both taken along
with a number of girls and men."

She paused.

"I don't believe I am good enough to go
home," she sobbed.

We talked for hours. Finally Mary con-
sented to try again. She wanted to see her
mother. I saw a Municipal Judge, and the
girl was set free. I took her to my home, and
then telegraphed to her mother.

THE ESCAPE 233

The following morning her mother came.
The maid brought her to the room where
Mary and I were sitting. She was a frail
little woman, with Mary's large soft eyes,
somewhat dimmed, and her face lined and
seamed by life's hard-fought battles.

"Mary!" she cried.

"Mother!"

The two were clasped in each other's arms.
I withdrew unnoticed from the room. When
I returned I found them sitting close, MaryJs
head resting on her mother's breast. And the
mother — peace had come to her at last.

"You're going back home together?" I
asked — "back to Limaville?"

"No," smiled Mrs. Holden, "we're going on
out west — out to the big open country. We'll
both begin our lives anew."

CHAPTER XXVI

CONCLUSION

MY object in writing these chapters has been
to impress my readers with the magnitude of
the work to be done if there is to be any effec-
tive reform and to rouse them from a view-
point too generally accepted that the social
evil has existed and always will exist.

Unfortunately I have been deterred through
the inevitable difficulties that beset the user of
plain language in public print from stating
facts as plainly as they should be stated to
penetrate the inner consciousness of the com-
placent American public.

Certain conditions that have been made
plain in my narrative of underworld adven-
ture must needs shriek in the ears of all good
men and women for immediate reform. It is

234

CONCLUSION 235

not to be believed that the people will be con-
tent to submit very much longer to the pres-
ence of a band of prowling wolves, tolerated
by courts and protected by rascally lawyers,
whose acknowledged trade is the destruction
of feminine virtue and whose whole activity
is directed to the exploitation of little girls
adrift.

It is unbelievable that mothers and fathers
will continue to tolerate a police system which
admits its futility and corruptness when it
cannot lodge in jail such widely known scoun-
drels as "Ike the Kike," and hundreds of
lesser satellites who operate year in and year
out against every principle of human decency
and virtue.

It is a hard thing to say, but there are few
mothers in Chicago who really know their
daughters and even fewer fathers who know
their sons. We all like to theorize and emo-

.4

tionalize over the beautiful sentiment of the

236 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

idea that American mothers are their daugh-
ters' confidantes — that the American son is the
chum of his father. The facts are contrari-
wise.

How many mothers in Chicago know who
the young men are with whom their daughters
spend the evenings away from home? How
many fathers ever concern themselves at all as
to the associations formed by their sons?

If there ever was a time when the girl in
the family needed for her protection every re-
source of motherhood that time is the present.
There never was a time in the world's history
when vice was so highly specialized. The
System, with its octopus-like arms, is in need
of thousands of girls annually. It recruits
them from all classes of society.

And speaking of fathers — there are not
many, I think, among the million in this city
who make any effort to direct the pleasures or
associations of their sons. In thousands of in-

CONCLUSION 237

stances the sons of families that have every
resource of wealth and culture are mere
hounds of the pave — their principal recrea-
tion the pursuit of young girls.

No man's business is so important that he
can afford to let his daughter drift into evil
associations or his son become a criminal drug
fiend, because, forsooth, the ticker keeps up
so perpetual a ticking. Better tear out the
ticker entirely and farm garden truck on a
ten-acre patch outside of town with a happy,
well-protected family than reap a ticker for-
tune that cannot buy back the purity of one
lost sister nor restore the moral fiber of a dis-
eased and drunken son.

Many Americans realize too late that in
their scramble for wealth they have overlooked
the real happiness and contentment of life
which has all the time been accessible. A
million dollars will not repair the wreckage
of a neglected family.

238 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

In this hurry-up age we are too prone to
neglect the substance for the shadow — to grasp
at a mirage while paying too little attention
to the ground that is under foot.

For the running down and eradication of
commercialized vice must be, as it is now in
fact becoming, a governmental duty. The
federal government's activities in that direc-
tion have already been more effective than all
the dubious works of municipalities for fifty
years, and the government has only awakened
to a sense of its responsibilities within the last
few years. There would be more joy in
heaven over the capture and lifelong incar-
ceration of "Ike the Kike," than over any
other thing that could happen in a backward
community.

A chorus of angels would sing with joy over
the destruction of such charnel houses as the
Cafe Sinister, The Torpedo Cafe and The

CONCLUSION 239

Cave, and the police protected saloon back
rooms with their overhead hells.

We have many excellent women's clubs en-
gaged in many excellent works, but there is
one great woman's job to be done which will
demand all the resources of all the women's
clubs, all the church organizations, all the
priests and ministers, all the sociologists and
lay preachers of this talkative decade.

That big job is the eradication of the social
evil in its commercial aspect at least. As long
as the clubs and other organizations act sepa-
rately and discuss separately and resolve
separately there will be no effective reform.
What is needed is a tremendous wave of fem-
inine public opinion that shall sweep this
country from end to end and force the hands
of the government officials to protect Ameri-
can womanhood before any less important
matters are taken up. Before we rage over

240 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

minor grievances of the sex let us redress this
great grievance. We can do it by a nation-
wide campaign of woman's organizations com-
bined into one tremendous force.

This is the one country in the world where
such a great, unified movement is at present
practicable. The campaign for woman's suf-
frage and its marvelous successes by ordinary
peaceful methods in the United States are
sufficient indication of the results that could
be achieved with all women throughout the
country united upon an object that could find
no single opponent among the good women of
the land.

A legitimate good time is what young peo-
ple want. Because they can't get it they get
into all kinds of trouble and misfortune.
Wholesome recreation is the most important
feature to provide in reclamation work. It is
so important that a city should undertake to
supply it.

CONCLUSION 241

There are not enough recreation centers to
keep children out of alleys. The city should
provide parks that will accommodate chil-
dren. Recreation centers should be supplied
by the municipality, not left to commercial-
ized interests.

In the vice districts we find victims of the
maladjustment of society. Society is respon-
sible for these victims. When a family of
seven is herded into two rooms it is not to be
wondered at that the girl living in these con-
ditions becomes depraved.

Is it to be wondered at that the mother who
is obliged to cook in a windowless kitchen be-
comes so nervous and irritable that she con-
tinually scolds? Is it any wonder that the
children leave home? Is not society, with its
inadequate housing laws, mostly to blame?

The system of fining offenders makes it
necessary for these women to continue living
immoral lives in order to pay fines. The law

242 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

defeats its own purpose. Every offender
should be sentenced to a state vocational farm
and given industrial training after examina-
tion as to mental condition has determined the
possibilities of reform.

This would keep decreasing the number of
women who make their living by evil methods.
If the sixty per cent, of such women said by
the statistics to be mentally deficient were
taken out of the ranks, sent into farm institu-
tions and treated scientifically, there would fol-
low a rapid improvement in the situation that
now appalls society.

In suggesting a remedy for the evils to
which I have tried to direct attention in the
preceding chapters of this story I feel that it is
incumbent upon me to admit the difficulties
that confront workers for sociological reform,
both as to the formation of a plan which shall
meet the approval of all religious denomina-
tions and as to the methods by which such a

CONCLUSION 243

plan may be put into practical and effective
operation.

It strikes me that the most important essen-
tial to a better state of public morals is con-
structive rather than reconstructive action —
that is to say, we must prevent the turning out
of untaught children from the public schools
instead of waiting until these children have
become versed in evil and then attempting to
apply remedial measures.

In brief, we are placing the cart before the
horse. Instead of teaching boys and girls the
essential truths about those physiological proc-
esses of nature which most parents religiously
lie about and conceal, we leave them to find out
in the bitter school of experience what should
have been impressed upon them plainly but
tactfully as an integral part of their school
training.

I consider the teaching of sex hygiene in
every public school in the United States the

244 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

first essential to a wide and general improve-
ment in public morals. There is no disguis-
ing the fact that the mystery thrown about sex
in our present system of child-teaching makes
for pruriency and promotes evil.

Education, then, is the basis of the remedy.
Given sound instruction in early youth, the
child of either sex is forearmed as well as fore-
warned.

A girl so grounded in the essentials of sex
knowledge is far less likely to fall a victim to
sex-emotion than a girl whose ideas of sex are
fogged in mystery which native curiosity may
solve to her own destruction and to the bitter
sorrow of her posterity.

The boy who has been taught respect for and
comprehension of the sex relation is certain to
acquire a broader and manlier view than that
which is born of "gang" discussions.

At all events, the best authorities of this
period in the world's advancement are agreed

CONCLUSION 245

that a marked improvement is observable in
the moral tone of both boys and girls who have
received such instruction.

I am quite aware that there are many ob-
jectors to the theory of general sex instruction
on the score that parents are the most com-
petent instructors of their own children in such
matters. And this is very true as far as it
goes, but the trouble is that it does not go far
enough. It is the lamentable fact that there
are far more incompetent than competent
parents, and the net result is that children in
the mass are left to find out for themselves
through all sorts of doubtful channels the
fundamental facts of life.

While we are upon this phase of the situa-
tion I will take occasion to declare that the
conditions in many of our public schools, as
far as the morals of the boys and girls attend-
ing them are concerned, may well be con-
sidered appalling.

246 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

We find in many instances after girls from
thirteen to fifteen years are taken to the Ju-
venile Court on charges of immorality that
they became depraved while little more than
babies, through associations in the public
schools. If there exists in the mind of the
person who has read this book a doubt con-
cerning the accuracy of this statement, I refer
such doubters to Judge Mary Bartelme of the
Child's Court, who will bear me out in it and
supply detail sufficient to convince any skep-
tic.

The Christian church must bestir itself.
The modern spirit among churches is directed
toward promotion of good citizenship, purer
city government, the elevation of political
standards. In pulpits all over Chicago minis-
ters are preaching the gospel of civics. They
are urging the election to office of worthy men.
They are inspiring a new type of Christian
leadership among young men and women who

CONCLUSION 247

are regular attendants of the churches, but
they are not beginning at the beginning.

The big problem is to reach that great body
of boys and girls that scorns the doors of the
church because of the stiff-collared religion
that is dispensed behind them. To reach these
young people the policy of the Christian
church will have to be radically changed. I
mean that part of its policy which concerns
the care and government of its youth. To
appeal to these young people the human side
of the church must be emphasized. The ab-
stract does not appeal. The need for reality
in religion is what is felt by the thousands of
boys and girls now adrift in Chicago, subject
to no church influence whatever. The church
that is beginning to incorporate ideas of social
service is that church which brings God to the
people.

Our problem is a deep one and no human
being can dictate a sovereign remedy for the

248 MY BATTLES WITH VICE

ills of society. Everybody knows that we
should abolish the grafting policeman, the
grafting politician, the disreputable hotel and
the low dance hall, but these are all part and
parcel of The System.

To abolish The System we shall have to
work systematically through the cooperation
of the churches and religious and social or-
ganizations. And the basis for reform must
be educational, beginning with the children
in the schools.

If we do the work that plainly awaits us we
shall have taken a long step toward saving
those thousands of girls who are every year
recruited into the army of little lost sisters.

THE END

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